


Cronus and Kankri Battle the Forces of Evil

by TheRickestRickthereis



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Adventure, Death, Gen, Humanstuck, Minor Drug Use, dad ampora is not a great dad, space
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-19
Updated: 2017-07-23
Packaged: 2018-03-31 08:12:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 39
Words: 53,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3970543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheRickestRickthereis/pseuds/TheRickestRickthereis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Congratulations, Cronus Ampora! You're dying! Now, you have two options. Either kick back and enjoy it and maybe wait for one of those Last Wish things to come through for you, or you can kidnap your hospital roommate and have the adventure of your life and possibly save the universe. Possibly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I go to Disney World and nearly drown myself

**Author's Note:**

> This is so bizarrely specific. How dare this not exist. How dare may I be the one to write it. Basically the Homestuck/Going Bovine AU that absolutely nobody asked for and nobody really wanted.

The first time I nearly died was at Disneyland.

Kind of pathetic.I nearly bit it at the place America goes for happy memories. I was seven years old. My younger brother, Eridan, was five. It was his first big family vacation. And seriously, fuck, yeah, Disneyland. Show me one kid who wouldn’t want to go to the Land of the Mouse.

Anyways, dying. I bet you’re wondering how. Did I fall off a ride? Wander off into the bushes and get mauled by rabid cartoon characters between photo ops?

You sick bastards. I nearly drowned on It’s a Small World After All.

If you’ve never been, here’s a summary of It’s a Small World. Long ass wait in long ass line, with it being so hot that you hallucinate. My brother and I were tripped-out on sugar, too. Even in the photos, you can totally tell our pupils were blown all the way out. My mom and dad pinned it on ever-elusive heat stroke, but we were so strung out we were vibrating.

It’s a Small World is a subterranean cave ride. You feel like you’re travelling through the underworld in this packed boat with a ton of strangers.

Holy shit. It _is_ the underworld.

So you’re travelling through this weird animatronic Netherscape, and everything’s singing. Everything is singing the same song. It’s a ten minute ride of the same song in English, Swahili, Japanese, you name it, you got it.

I’m not gonna lie to you, seven year old me was in fucking seven year old heaven. I wanted to join in the Swedish hoedown, soar on the hot air balloons, kick up my heels in fake Paris. I wanted to be apart of things. I knew, deep in my stupid kid brain that if I jumped the boat and swam across the river to the puppets, they’d take me in as their own kind. I could finally belong to something bigger than me, you know? And after my mom read me so many stories about super special chosen kids, who could blame me? Fuck yeah, gimme wizard academy, or god camp, or Starship Rangers.

I managed to make it to the stereotypical heart of the jungle before I jumped ship. My mom screamed and tried to grab me back. Sorry, mom! My people need me!

I hit the water and sank. It’s a Small World does not hold a lot of water, but I didn’t swim very well. Also, the river is not very deep. I abandoned ship and pretty much ate pavement. I still got the forehead scars from it. Also I downed some water with that, too, what not being able to breathe underwater and all.

At this point, I could still hear my mom screaming to stop the ride. Snot-coloured light filtered wavily through the water, looking like I’d finally landed in a watery hell. It’s a Small World burbled through in German (Es ist eine Welt des Gelächters Eine, Welt der Es von den Rissen Ist eine Welt von Hoffnungen Und einer Welt, German, or so I’m told, for “It’s a world of laughter, a world of tears.”)

And I did not magically become a part of things.

Sucks, but that’s life for you. I got fished back out by the Disney Paramedics. I got to lay down on the sprayed-hard landscape of fake non-specific jungle and puked up a pint of Small World Styx River water. The medics yammered into shoulder-holster walkie-talkies, saying It Was Under Control.

I remember watching a string of monkeys rhythmically dipping in a chain to the music, eyes staring unblinkingly ahead, hands reaching out to touch the surface of the water over and over.

From here, shit gets hazy and it’s filled in by the memories of my own parents. We got to skip all the lines and go on any ride we wanted. I guess Disney was afraid my father’d sue for letting his precious tomato take the plunge into the Happiest Rainwater Ditch on Earth. After the traumatic visit, my dad went to go spend some time with Eridan and recover him from any potential shock while mom tried to wash the smell of the ride off me.

“Cronus,” she’d asked. “Why’d you jump? Did the ride scare you?” I didn’t know how to answer it. I nodded. “Aw, baby,” she said, twisting a spike of three-times-now shampooed hair into a little pyramid. “It wasn’t real, okay, Cronus? It can’t hurt you.” “Just a ride,” I repeated numbly.

I dodged death’s icy grip at the Place Where Dreams Come True. I Went To Disney World and All I Got Were These Scars and a Boatload of Psychological Trauma. The Final Tax Collector came around for me again when I was sixteen years old. Not in a optimistic boat ride, this time.

I got sick.


	2. I trip out in English class and smoke up in the bathroom

Right, right, wind the tape forwards. I’m sixteen. I’m in remedial english class. Oh, yeah. Single-cell organism level. I’m not smart, and God knows I’m not nice, but I must’ve kicked a special orphan to get stuck at a table with Equius Zahhak. 

Equius is a year younger than me, so that tells you everything you need to know about my grades, and his too, I guess. Equius plays football and is on the wrestling team. His muscles have muscles. He could decapitate me with a flex of a bicep. He’s also way too big to fit at a table, so he hunches up with his elbows, knees, and ankles sucked in tight to his body. Whatever, it’s not like I want to touch you either. Equius sweats so much that he always leaves forearm-prints on the table, and he always smells like lunch meat.

“Did you do the reading?” he asks, his voice ashy and whistling between his broken teeth. “Not yet,” I respond, staring at a mark on the floor.

“It’s due today.”

I’m also three chapters behind in Don Quixote. Let’s just do the math on this. I give a noncommittal shrug. My english teacher’s droning away at the front of the class. Bless you, Mr. Doze, you and your sleepy, watery eyes and your weird devotion to Cervantes.

“Was Don Quixote mad? Or was he…the only…one who…”

I fold my arms on the desk and slide into them. Doze’s voice has a certain soporific quality, you know? It’s like a vacuum cleaner for your brain. My eyes start to flicker closed when I catch sight of the sky outside. The fresh-mixed-paint blue is lacerated with red lines, like a pot smoker’s eyes. A red thread snakes out of the sky, delicately touching down in the football field. The grass catches fire immediately, scorch marks radiating out in concentric circles. The football posts start to smoke, white paint melting into milky puddles.

“Mr…Ampora?”

Mr. Doze’s voice jerks me back to class. I look towards my dumpy teacher, and then back out at the football field. No Dali goalposts, no red lines, nothing. My right arm spasms, fingers temporarily snarling.

“Can I be excused?” I ask.

“Why…?”

I’m pretty sure Doze doesn’t mean to sound sarcastic. My palms feel sweaty and cold. “School nurse break?” I try. Doze shrugs, and laboriously writes me a hall pass. After snatching my little green pass to freedom, I motor up to the third floor bathroom.

Nobody really uses the third floor men’s, so it’s in use by the Smoking Society. The Smoking Society consists of Stoner Gamzee, his older brother Stoner Kurloz, and part-time Stoner Meulin, Kurloz’s girlfriend and supplier. I don’t like drugs. I hate the taste of weed. But Meulin’s three parts hot to one part crazy, and Gamzee and Kurloz Makara aren’t too hard to look at either. Plus, they tolerate me, so that’s a positive.

Stoner Gamzee offers up a blunt and I take a hit. He immediately leaps back into whatever conversation they were having before.

“So all I’m motherfucking sayin’ is,” says Gamzee. “It’s an all up miracle. We’re made of motherfuckin’ stardust, bro. We’re all, like, miracles.”

Meulin rubs at her pot-scorched eyes. “Cronus, you’ve heard of the stardust theory thing right?” she asks. Well, Meulin’s mostly deaf, and when mixed with weed her voice becomes more of a statement. _YOU’VE HEARD OF THE STARDUST THEORY, RIGHT?_

I shake my head no. The pot's made me feel sleepy and stupid. There’s a chorus of groans from the Smoking Society. Kurloz can’t talk, but his look of disappointment speaks volumes. Gamzee grins, glazed eyes squishing into crescents with the force of it.

“Oh, bro, this will trip you out! So apparently like way, way out in motherfuckin’ space, there’s these stars?” he pauses here, passing the joint to Kurloz, who takes a hit. “And when they get really old, like, they motherfuckin’ explode, because that’s just, like, what stars do.” I nod. This sounds plausible, but Gamzee’s got a habit of being twenty percent right about stuff.

“And with that big, big explosion, it spits out a shit ton of stardust!” Here Gamzee wiggles his fingers, miming sparkly star fumes. “And all that shiny motherfuckin’ magic dust eventually gets pressed into, into planets, and motherfuckin’ human-beings, bro! So we,” he jabs me in the chest with a finger. “Are made of stardust.”

Behind us, one of the toilets flushes, and the palest kid I’ve ever seen steps out of one of the stalls. He’s so white, you can see the blue veins under his eyes, like veins in old cheese. His hair’s white-blonde, and sticks up like dandelion fluff. He narrows his eyes at us, but doesn’t say anything.

“Can I help you, bro?” asks Gamzee. The weird kid goes to wash his hands.

“Not particularly. I mean, not if you’re going to use the bathroom as your own personal smoking lounge. Do you have any idea what kind of damage that stuff does to you?” he says, his voice icy cold.

“Uh, it’s basically harmless. And, like, natural?” venture Meulin. “Natural!” he sputters. “Natural! That stuff could be up twenty-five percent in THC, and it exacerbates any underlying mental health issues that could lead to schizophrenia and psychosis!”

“Word,” says Gamzee, exhaling a gust of smoke.

Dude makes a disgusted noise, and after he scrubs down his hands, he strides past us, holding his breath. “What the hell is his damage?” I ask the moment the door closes behind him. Kurloz starts to sign something, and Meulin steps in to translate for her silent boyfriend.

“That’s Kankri Vantas, and he’s preachy and weird about, like, everything,” she explains, pawing at her long hair to untangle it. Her pretty face slips into a languid smile. “Hey, Cronus, ask Gamzee what he’s doing for extra credit?” Gamzee starts fumbling around in his Starship Rangers backpack, and pulls out a slab of balsa wood with an irregular, uneven block on top of it. “Enjoy, motherfucker!” he says happily, thrusting it into my arms. I eye it dubiously. “What’m I looking at here, chief?” I ask, looking at the weird carvings on the side of the block.

“My brother, it’s Buckingham Palace! For world history!” says Gamzee happily. “More like Suckingham Palace, dude,” I cut it to him honestly, and gently hand it back. Meulin starts cackling. “Suckingham palace! _OhmyGod_ , I can’t!” she wheezes, fanning at her eyes. Even Kurloz starts chuckling way-low in his throat. Gamzee looks utterly gutted. “Motherfucker, come on, why you gotsta be so cruel?” he asks me, holding onto the wonky replica of Suckingham Palace. I shrug and motion for Meulin to pass the weed back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all the Kudos last chapter! Updates are probably going to be random and sporadic, sorry!


	3. I pay a visit to the sort-of only friend I've got

I’m buzzing on what’s left of my high, so much so that I actually go back to class. Equius gives me a look like I’m something he found deep in his bathroom drain, but it rolls right off me. Nothing in the universe can bring me down, baby. Not even my negative chances with Aranea Serket and her sweet little knee socks.

Typically the wash-up would fall in love with the cheerleader, right? Some nice girl, seasoned with daddy issues, white blonde who doesn’t want to date me at first because she can’t see through the stupid high school class system, but would totally realize that _Boy Fuckin’ Howdy_ I have a heart of gold underneath the miles of garbage.Nah, Aranea’s not the cheerleader. I went for the other good-girl archetype. The Class President. The Yearbook Committee Leader. The Glasses-Wearing Sweet Nerdy Girl. Unfortunately, she’s very hot. Also, double unfortunate, John Hughes is not calling the shots in my pathetic life, so my chances of a date are slim-to-none.

Meenah Peixes, Aranea’s best friend since the two of them were old enough to break the hearts of nice guys, is trying to convince Aranea to shell out for some spring break trip to California. “Come on, gurl! Holla Mansion, it’s gonna be totally off the hook!” says Meenah, eyebrow rings flashing with each eyebrow waggle she gives. “I dunno, Meenah, that’s going to be a lot of money, you know? California?” she replies, tucking her hair behind her ear. The gesture is so feminine, it’s got a kind of prettiness in itself.

I’m such a fucking sap.

Meenah slumps against the lockers. Meenah’s six-two, long-limbed and broomstick-thin. Scary-intimidating as she is, Meenah drops a lot of the ghetto-tough atmosphere around Aranea. “Serk, come on! Just dip into your college fund, you’ve got seee-rious bank in there! You’re gonna get a scholarship anyway!” protests Meenah, reaching for Aranea’s calc textbook, near the back of her locker.

Holla Mansion! Now Trademarked! It’s just as much a part of Youth Pop Culture as Holla Network, Goop Soda, and Dave Strider. Holla Mansion, home of non-stop parties and Girls Get Weird. It might as well be in another galaxy. I’m gonna be stuck in Canada for the rest of my life.

It’s a quick bike ride to Odyssey Records from my school, and the weather isn’t cold as dicks for once. Edmonton doesn’t normally get this warm this early, and it turns the snow sticky and melts ice puddles into half-frozen grey dishwater. I’m supposed to pick up my little brother Eridan but we’ve worked out a system where he walks home by himself and in return I don’t tell dad that he’s been fighting a girl in his class. Odyssey is squeezed between a gothic store that specializes in vampire and Deep Space Starship Ranger stuff, and the very-edge neighbourhood of Plesentview. No typos on that. You make the extra money to pay for the missing vowel.

Odyssey Records is a little slice of heaven on Earth, no word of a joke. You’ll never spot a ten-storey tower of CDs for a fourteen-looking twentysomething who won’t matter in three weeks, or hear a bearded schmuck spouting obscenities like “I _guess_ the Cairo Overcoat Experience was okay, but it wouldn’t have had the success it did if the Gorillaz hadn’t kicked the way in.” Nah. Odyssey is awash in everything you need. Records, LPs, CDs, hell, anything you want, you got it. It’s in a perpetual state of non-organized. Check all the bins, and all the milk crates, and under the bins, too, while you’re down there if you want something. Also, it’s got another one of my almost-friends. A Friendquaintance. Lil’ Hal owns and operates Odyssey, and he might have a last name, but he doesn’t need it.

Hal gives me a nod, glancing over in a cooler-than-thou way towards the four thousand wind chimes he’s attached to the door.

“Hey, dude,” I call.

“You reek of weed.”

I smell my shirt.

“You got me, Hal. You got anything good in here?”

Hal is either two years older than me, or he’s thirty. I can’t really tell, because he’s got one of those ageless faces. He dyes his hair an unnatural ketchup red, and I’ve only seen him wear all black. He’s also got his shades on, dark and pointy enough to slice open envelopes. “You mean like, actually good? Or what you call good?” he asks, face staying stoic. I think him smiling would actually kill him, or send him into a fit of instant rigor mortis. Hal starts rummaging under the counter, and emerges with a CD. “Pop Culture Cameos, Infinite Symphony Extra-nice Version,” he says. “Nice! Thank you!” I reach for it, but he snaps the CD back so it’s resting against his shoulder.

“Why do you buy this crap, Ampora?”

Pop Culture Cameos are, sadly, one of my favourite bands. An indie band that warbles about the pains and trials and celebrations of life on ukelele and violin and piano. The flower-child fake-glasses hipster-lite BS that’s so twee and marketable that everybody just loves them. The songs are so processed that there’s no way you can’t sing to them. There’s no way that you don’t tap out the chords on your thigh or on your steering wheel or try to wheeze along with the lead singer. It’s the stupid soundtrack behind every coming-of-age movie that you’d see with your friends. If you had any. Pop Culture Cameos are an experience. One of the better ones in this terrible life.

“Because it’s fucking terrible,” is what I tell Hal. Hal shakes his head.

“Your taste is equal parts irredeemable and terrible, Cronus.”

I shrug and elect to say nothing. Hal considers me for a moment, before turning and heading to the back of the store, separation curtain flapping behind him. “Well, come on,” he says, sounding irritated. I jump the counter, and head into the bowels of the Odyssey.

The back room of Odyssey Records is a lot less impressive than I thought it would be. It’s got the Concrete Bunker end-of-the-world aesthetic going on. Fake-wood table with the fold-out feet, metal folding chairs that look like they were once wrestling match props, and a corkboard of all sorts of weird bobs and bells and whistles. Hal starts flipping through a crate of records, elegant fingers step-step-stepping across the sleeves. I let my eyes wander over his ass for a moment, and then over the corkboard. Mardi Gras beads are strung from thumbtacks mixed in with photos of Hal with his Much Cooler Friends playing pool and at art gallery openings and whatever else he does when he’s not at Odyssey.

“Chuh-Chuh-Check it,” says Hall, spinning expertly on his heels, a record sleeve daintily held. The sleeve itself is worn out, a big white circle running where the record is starting to wear through. The sleeve’s got a photo of a massive thunderstorm with crackling green lightning.

“What’s that, chief?”

If I could see his eyes, I’m pretty sure Hal would be rolling them. “It’s one of the best things ever,” he says nonchalantly, like he’s telling me something that’s not a big deal. I can faintly see the name in the middle of the storm. _Vitriol. Rufioh Nitram._

“Never heard of it, Hal.”

“Of course you haven’t,” says Hal, setting up his record player. “Nitram’s one of the best punk rockers that ever lived, okay?”

“Punk rock?” I ask, trying to keep the disdain out of my voice. I’ve never really been a punk rock fan, but I’ll give it a try. Hal drops the needle, and starts humming along with opening baseline riff. His fingers start to fret along the edge of the player, tapping out a morse code of notes. _I am so very very angry, STOP._ _Growing up is so tough, STOP._

“What’d you think?” he asks, when the song screeches to an end. “It’s really something, babe,” I volunteer. Hal isn’t fooled. He crosses his arms and waits while I falter with my vocabulary. “It’s definitely the best, you know? I mean, the bass and the drums and the vocals, I just don’t know what to say?” Hal turns and mechanically flips the record off the player. “Borrow it, then. Give it back on Monday.” My throat momentarily constricts. Hal is very picky about his records. “What if I hurt it?” I ask, and feel like an idiot.

“You won’t, because I’d break your fingers,” says Hal, handing over the Rufioh Nitram. I hold it very carefully, like they’re nuclear launch codes. “Be careful,” instructs Hal, giving me a glance over the top of his shades. His eyes are framed with blonde lashes, but are rheumy and pink like a rabbit’s.

“Gotcha, Hal.”


	4. I subject myself to interaction with my brother

Eridan’s left his shoes in front of the door again, and when I swing it open it bulldozes over them, sucking them under the weather stripping. I kick the shoes to freedom and hip check the front door shut. I’ve got Vitriol held carefully with two hands, like a monk with a bowl of water. The Pop Culture Cameo CD is safely zippered into my backpack.

“Eridan!” “

"Piss off!”

Well, he’s still home. Eridan’s fourteen now, and barely resembles the chubby little five year old who got traumatized watching his older brother jump ship at Didney Worl. I mean, he’d probably be okay if you looked past him being fourteen and a complete and utter sociopath. Maybe the sociopathy comes with the age, though. I dunno.

He’s also inherited the Ampora speech impediment, just like me. V’s become W’s, and years and years of speech therapy have blurred a lot of phonetic distinction between my V’s and W’s. Eridan’s got it worse, though, he chokes up on W’s.

“W-when’s dad coming home?” calls Eridan. I catch the white-blue glow of a computer screen inside his room.

“Whenever he likes, I guess.”

I carefully slide Vitriol onto the kitchen table, and just in time, too. My right arm cramps up again, fifth and fourth fingers paralyzing into claws. I let out a chorus of _ow ow ow ow ow_ , because it doesn’t hurt overly, more like I pulled a muscle. There’s a blast of upbeat music from upstairs, which nearly drowns out Eridan’s sudden spew of profanity. I shake the last of the cramp out of my hand and grab Vitriol off the table. “What’cha listening to?” I call up the stairs, headed to my room.

“Nothing! It’s anime! Fuck off, Cronus!”

I glance into Eridan’s room. It’s done in a deep, moody purple, and full of books. No kidding, Eridan reads like it makes him better than everyone else. And not kid books, either, full-assed sci-fi fantasy bullshit that incorporates it’s own languages and eight million characters.

“Yeah?” I ask.

Eridan momentarily glances up from his laptop. The screen whites out the lenses of his glasses, making his eyes hard to see. “It’s Neon Star Ultimate,” he mumbles.

“Oh yeah?”

Eridan doesn’t even look up.

“It’s about this scumbag bounty hunter guy w-who has to right the state of the uniwerse.”

That does sound like something he’d like. I nod, in an _I Hear What You’re Saying but I Don’t Understand You_ sort of way. “Whatcha want for dinner?” I ask, because if dad works late today I get stuck with dinner. Eridan shrugs, running a hand through his dark hair. I think I spot a bruise blooming near his hairline. Well, if he doesn’t want to talk, I won’t force him. I make a turn into my own room and carefully, carefully, lay down Vitriol next to my Crosley, like it’s a royal baby made of crystal. It’s usually just the three of us. Me, Eridan, and Dad. Mom left when I was eleven, like some home wrecking magic trick. Now you see her, now you don’t. Instead of driving the rest of the Ampora clan into separate corners of the house, it’s sort of brought us all a little tighter together. Appropriate delegations of laundry and babysitting that I’m not actually doing. Okay, so it’s not like we’re totally dysfunctional. Things could be worse.

Things could also be a lot better, too, but nobody really mentions that side of the equation.

“Choose your own adventure for dinner tonight!” I tell Eridan, leaning around his doorframe to look at him. He’s switched positions, lying flat on his back with the laptop huffing and wheezing on his chest. I head back downstairs, but halfway down my right ankle gives out. It’s only like an ass-over-eyebrows sort of thing but god damn. Embarrassing. I try to raise up onto my forearms, but my arms don’t want to pull in. I can put a little weight on my wrists and push up like that, but not enough to roll over or get up. “You okay?” calls Eridan. Lazy ass didn’t even leave his room.

“Yeah,” I shout back, letting myself rest on the floor for a bit. “I’m fine.


	5. Somebody Hotboxes my basement with like, half the galaxy

As it happens, I’m having trouble sleeping. I’m awake even when my dad comes back from work. My dad’s at the University of Alberta right now, teaching first year english to a bunch of engineers who really just want to scrape past that necessary arts course with no trouble. My dad’s not to be put off by their half-assedness, though. You kids are gonna read The Catcher in the Rye or Lord of the Rings or whatever and you’re gonna enjoy it. Mandatory learning can be fun, right?

Don’t get me wrong, though, my dad’s a good guy. He’s just sort of imposing. Actually, of all the things about my dad, the most important thing is that he really goddamn loves boats. It’s like he woke up one day, realized he didn’t have any hobbies, and was all, “Time to get full-ass interested in boats.” He’s got motorized boat models, sailboats in bottles, little steamboat paperweights. It’s bizarre, but then again there’s not a lot I can do about it. I live in a house made of boats and books and if that sounds strange that’s because it is.

I wait until dad’s gone to bed before I sneak downstairs to boot up the computer. I mean, if I can’t sleep, doesn’t mean I can’t do anything. I dial the volume down to two green lines, keeping a wary ear out for Almighty Father Thales Ampora. No need for him to be here, especially if I "accidentally" find porn.

Look, we all do it.

I flip through my dark-blue social media, passing a news link about abandoned subdivisions, an incoming fakeumentary about punk music, until I accidentally hover over a video for too long and it boots into playing.

“Nooo,” I groan, trying to find a way to shut it down.

“For the whole process to start, takes an element of chance.”

The narrator of Crack-Science-Social-Media-Flavour-Of-The-Month is a bald guy with the kind of glasses that sit on the end of his nose. Scratch Kankri, this guy is the whitest guy I’ve ever seen. Pale moon face, white pants, white jacket, noxiously green shirt. To look at him properly, you need to squint. “I am Doctor Scratch,” he intones, staring directly into the camera, hands folded behind his back.

“The universe is an amazing place.”

Behind him, clouds of space dust drift across the blank void of space. One of Cairo Overcoat Experience’s songs plays softly in the background. “Is this world really all there is? Do our atoms not dream of more?” asks Doctor Scratch.

“Do they?” I respond, trying to find out who posted this. I can’t find any names.

“The events of our universe are like a colossal game of pool. Beneath all there is, there is order, and that order can be manipulated.”

The screen cuts through to a shot of pool balls clacking and rolling across a deep green pool table. I scroll away from the video. Scratch keeps rambling on about the complexity of space but rolls up out of my computer screen. Starship Rangers has officially posted an update regarding merchandise. Ah, Starship Rangers. The favourite tale of many young kids, myself and Eridan included. Who doesn’t want a story of some cocky upstart battling a nefarious cosmic villain who wants to control the universe? Still, though, I continue onwards, through the stories of people having wonderful, fulfilling lives, until I hear the telltale padding of feet across the kitchen floor.

“Eridan?” I call softly. He doesn't respond. I head out of the office, making towards the kitchen. Not surprisingly, it’s empty. I hear the footsteps a little quicker, heading down into the basement. The basement door’s open, too. Now, I, too, have seen horror movies. Don’t go into the damn basement or attic. Hell, never go anywhere, ever. Stay home.

“What’re you doing, Eridan?” I call, again, quietly, and start to head down into our unfinished basement. I start counting steps as I go, and on the fourth one down, I can spot little bits of light. My basement, cluttered with cardboard boxes and a sofa-bed and a pool table is awash in starlight. Constellations in miniature hover in gas pockets, making the air hazy. Brilliant pockets of sulphur and orange and blue trapped between the raw-pink insulation walls. I don’t understand, so I stare mutely. How? How the fuck? I wave my hand through one, watching it reform with the strokes of my fingers. It’s like sand. I swing my arms in circles, watching the stardust form and reform, being whipped into something different. It’s stars. My basement is full of stars. This is incredible, but I am probably hallucinating.

Suddenly, I twitch, hard, arm muscles going again into spasms. “Dammit, seriously?” I ask, trying to make my hands grab onto my forearms but it’s not working. A form arises from the dark fabric of the fold-out couch. I can tell that they’re female, thick built, too, not that I’m complaining. Flabby arms, all breasts and hips and thighs. Spirals of tattoos wind over the expanse of her skin, and she’s wearing some kind of fancy dress, faintly green-black that shimmers with a sort of depth as she shifts her weight. Her hair’s black and wild and hangs around her face and splays over her shoulders, running like her inky tattoos. Her eyes are a deep brown, surrounded by green eyeshadow and pierced-up eyebrows. A lip ring splits down the centre of her full lower lip, making her lips seem thicker, kissable, even.

But all lips are kissable, aren’t they?

Stardust hovers between us, like pot smoke or incense. She tilts her head to the side, looking me over, but doesn’t say anything. She looks unimpressed.

“Hey,” I say, but she doesn’t respond.

“Hey!” I try again.

And then I wake up. I wake up in my own bed, feeling pissed-off and robbed because _god damn it are you serious?_ _What was that?_ My head starts pounding, and I brace my hands on either side of it to keep it together. My dad knocks on my door.

“Cronus?”

“Not now, dad! I ain’t dressed properly!”

I close my eyes as tight as I can. My leg twitches, pulling inwards and then the muscle cramps, sending me even more pain. I groan and fall back, pulling the sheets over my head.


	6. I try to pick a fight and get my dumb self suspended

“Cronus? You aw-wake?”

It’s Saturday, Eridan, you shit, let me sleep in. I haven’t slept in three days. Let me have this.

“I w-wrote a story for a competition, and I could go to Disneyland if I win.”

I cannot take this shit right now.

“Get the fuck out of my room.”

Eridan makes a disgusted noise.

“Fuck! You!” he spits.

“Fuck you back,” I mutter, trying to calm my headache by keeping my eyes shut.

“YOU TWO!” thunders my dad from the living room. “ENOUGH!”

Jump ahead two days to Tuesday. I’m in the third floor smoking lounge, having cut gym class. I’ve got both hands braced on the porcelain bowl of the sink, trying not to puke.

“Motherfucker, you don’t look so good.”

Stoner Gamzee’s right, I don’t. For once, my eyes are naturally bloodshot, and I look sallow, quite a feat for someone half Hawaiian. “You wanna ditch English?” Stoner Gamzee asks, and sets a hand on my shoulder. Pain rockets right through me, sending my hands skittering over the sides of the sink. I yelp and flinch away, and Gamzee at least looks apologetic. “Can’t, chief. Gotta maintain the GPA,” I tell him. Cutting class would just sink my average, something I really don’t need on top of everything else. Stoner Gamzee nods sagely. “You want me to walk you there?” he asks, and he reaches for my hand before he remembers how bad my nerves are.

“You know where I take english?”

“Brother!” says Stoner Gamzee happily. “I’m in your class!”

This is news to me. However, I get lost after I leave the bathroom and let Gamzee lead me to Mr. Doze’s English.

Even after sinking into my seat, I can’t sit still. My muscles tap dance under my skin, nerves flaring up like fireworks. “Sit still,” intones Equius. “Trying,” I mutter through gritted teeth. Mr. Doze has plugged in the overhead, and it’s starting to overheat and stink. I twitch and tremble, because, hey, might as well go into a full-on seizure, right? A small flare of blue flame kicks up at the back of the overhead.

“Mr. Doze!” I shout, pointing. Mr. Doze glances towards the overhead, and then scans down the class list. “Yes, Mr…..Ampora? Is there a problem?” “Overhead…fire…?” I squeeze out, because my jaw’s decided to lock up, in addition to my arms clawing their way across my chest. Thanks, guys. Much appreciated. The fire glows red, sending out snaking crimson tendrils that begin to dig into the floor. Acid flashback? C’mon, I’ve never even done acid.

“Hey, my wicked teacher bro, Cronus is a-okay! He’s just taken some really bad mushrooms!”

Thank you, Gamzee. Thank you for that. My leg snaps outwards, all by itself, and there’s a brief spark of pain that goes with it. “Mr. Ampora, do you need to leave?” asks Mr. Doze, watching me like he is not paid enough to put up with my bullshit.

“Look, sir, I just—oh, goddammit!” I grab hold of my wrist to try to stop the shaking. “Do not swear at the teacher,” says Equius, leaning on the table. It creaks under his weight. And maybe it’s the sleep deprivation, maybe it’s the pain or the other bullshit, because I just noticed the projector isn’t even plugged into the wall, but I snap at Equius, spitting out, “Shut the hell up, Zahhak. Fucking goddamn fight me, you,” I pause, trying to get a grip on my breakdancing muscles. “Sonofabitch!”

Equius’ lip curls up to the point where I can spot the little capillaries running through it. One of his big, ham-sized fists curls in my shirt and the other one cocks back.

The school admins wait for me to regain consciousness before they suspend the two of us, though.


	7. I have the worst car ride home.

The car ride home is without a doubt, the tensest car ride I have ever experienced.

Thales Ampora is a threatening man. My dad looks like a mob boss. My father is the godfather.

“Dad,” I try, my fingers curling into the soft skin on the inside of my arm to the point where I know it’ll bruise. “Dad, I am so sorry.”

My dad has the same dark hair that I do but it’s going grey at the front and sides, my same cheekbones and eyebrows, where Eridan got mom’s baby face and brown hair. My father has a black look reserved just for me.

“I cannot believe this,” he says, almost mildly, taking his eyes momentarily off traffic to glance at me. This is bad, this is so bad, I am in so much trouble.

“Dad, please—“

“You’re on drugs, now, huh? Good look getting into college on that.”

“I’m not, dad, I swear, dad—“

“You’re going to end up on welfare, Cronus,” snaps my father, hands white-knuckling on the wheel. My father has two scars that have nearly whited out with age that run diagonally across his face from a boating accident as a kid. Amporas have never had great luck with water.

“Dad, I am so sorry,” I mutter, digging my fingernails into the inside of my arm a little harder. The whole area is numb, and I wonder when I relax my hand, will my nails have to be taken out like fishhooks.

“You did this to yourself, Cronus,” says my father, signalling to change lanes. “So in five years when you’re homeless, I don’t want to hear you blaming me for screwing up your life when you did that all by yourself.”

I chew on my lower lip and stare at the bumper-to-bumper traffic outside. There’s been another car crash, because Edmonton sees a lot of those. “Okay,” is what I manage. Because this is my fault, I know I’m stupid, I know I’m garbage, I know that this and everything else is my fault. I want to tell my dad about the twitching, but what if that’s from smoking too much? Oh my God, my dad might actually flip out and hit me if he found out about that. My dad’s never hit me before but he can’t know. He can’t find out I’m smoking, oh my God. The thought of that makes my throat clench up. My dad exhales like a horse through his nose.

“On drugs, I sweartuhgod, Cronus, if your medical results don’t come back clean, you are in so much trouble.”

I know I’m in trouble, dad, thanks. My dad stops at a red light, and fixes me with a deep stare. My dad has eyes like me, too, a deep dark purple. “You understand me?” he asks. I nod, fear working sinuously through me. He won’t throw me out if I test positive for weed, right? Can you test positive for weed? Maybe I could stay with Gamzee for a bit?

Like I said. Could be better, could be worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys! Oh, you guys! Thanks for reading this and for the kudos, oh my gosh. That's like seventeen kudoses! So much! Oh my gosh, you're too kind.


	8. The Apocalypse swirls nigh and I have a nasty run in with a dude in a helmet

My drug test isn’t until Monday at nine. So thus far I am not dead, and I just have to live through the worst weekend of my life.

“Holy shit,” breathes Eridan when he comes home from school that day. How he found out, I’m not sure. I’m holed up in my room with the Doritos, trying to avoid my dad and staring at the bruising inking up the right side of my face.

“I know,” I say, holding out the Doritos in an offering of peace.

“Are you like, expelled? Dad is _so pissed,”_ says Eridan, shutting the door behind him carefully.

“Nah, not yet. Just suspended. But dad thinks I’m a pill-popper, so that’s just dandy.”

Eridan grabs a handful of Doritos, darts back to his room, and returns with a fat stack of graphic novels and actual novels. Brightly-inked Guardians of the Galaxy fan out against Gaiman, rubbing shoulders with Harry Potter and backwards-facing manga of Neon Star Ultimate. “Told ya already, Eridan,” I say, licking Dorito dust off my fingers. “I don’t like books.”

“These are for me, ya fuckin douchecanoe. I gotta read ewerything to be a better w-writer,” he says, flipping open a comic book about Mad Max of the Apocalypse Teenagers. I shrug, leaning momentarily off the bed and bracing one hand on the floor to flip on my own music. “Stevie Wonder? Really?” asks Eridan, glancing over the edge of his book.

“Stevie Wonder remix. My room, my music.”

On Saturday, dad goes grocery shopping. Eridan claims that he has to go play D&D with a couple buddies. I’m left alone in the house, so naturally, I grab my bike and shove out. Behind my old elementary school, there’s a really big hill that I used to go sledding on in the winter when I was younger. I could say that you could see the whole neighbourhood from there, but it’s not really true. You can see a small parcel, with houses stretching out in every direction. It’s like a magic eye puzzle, the same off-white house copy-pasted over and over again, and maybe if you squint it could be something else.

The surface of the moon.

The bottom of the ocean.

Anything else than where you are.

I’m not sure why I came out here, but this might be the last bike ride for a very long time. I coast down the hill, rounding the fence at the end of the street. The fence sort of marks the end of the neighbourhood, because after that, it’s just empty fields. There’s been a few development projects in the works, but so far, nothing’s been done. The air’s started feeling heavy and coppery, like it might storm. Pretty weird, as it's spring and thunderstorms don't roll in until August. Still, though, it’s nice to be outside.

Shit, I really need to get Vitriol back to Hal. What if my dad or Eridan break it? That’s stupid, they wouldn’t do that, would they? It starts spitting cold rain, and something boom in the distance. It's not thunder, not with this weather. My neighbourhood is far enough behind me, and I can see the faint outline of Plesantview, the next one over. God, this is so stupid. Different neighbourhoods like dystopia factions. When all the food runs out, we’ll have to get our butlers to fight each other.

I turn my bike around, and notice that someone’s standing in the middle of the road.

“You lost?” I call out, but he doesn’t move.

“HEY! I’M TALKING TO YOU!” I try again. Thunder rumbles through the sky, for real now. What the fuck? Thunder in March?

Still, nothing from Helmet Man. What, is he deaf? I bike a little closer, and notice that he’s wearing some kind of weird Starship Rangers helmet, like Dr. Dark Matter. His is green, not black like the movies, an articulated green skull, ending in way-sharp teeth and matched with almost space-age samurai armour, chest plate calligraphed with whorls of neon green.

“You okay, chief?” I call, stopping my bike a good distance away. He’s got a rifle strapped to hie back. Like hell I’m getting closer.

The hair on my arms starts to prickle. Something about this guy makes me feel sick. I mean, sure, weird guy, abandoned road. I might get a candlelight vigil. Lightning starts to flash, a deep scarlet instead of white-blue. My chest feels tight, and Green Helmet tilts his head to the side before pointing up to the sky. I look up to the sky in time for the first strike to hit. A coil of red lightning snakes down, cracking into the empty field. Smaller lines of corruption spread out from the spot of impact, heading towards me like a bunch of hungry eels. The second dopplers out of the sky behind me, pitching me forwards as the road wavers away from it. My breath is coming in short wheezes. I don’t know if the rain’s stopped or if I can’t feel it anymore, because the red lightning is scorching hot, the kind of hot that makes you think of infections. Green Helmet seems unaffected, watching as a tiny branch of red lightning reaches out to poke at my shoulder. It burrows into my flesh, and my entire arm goes into agony. The elbow snapping up to hit me in the chest and fingers snarling into my shirt.

My eyes start watering, and I just keep watching like an idiot as the whole world falls apart. Falling onto my back, I stare up at the sky, riddled with bright red lines. I can’t make my arm stop hurting. I rub at the muscle, trying to coax it back into cooperation. I curl around it, tucking my head into my knees, because the next strike that hits me will kill me. I know that. I won’t be able to take a full-body hit. I’m not sure how long I’m there for. But eventually, the rain turns back into rain, then a full-blown sleet downpour, with me biking home and jumping at every car that passes me.


	9. The good die young and I die of Mad Cow Disease

Not surprisingly, I hardly sleep all weekend. Every time I blink, I keep seeing end-of-the-world flashbacks. Way too much weird shit is happening to me. And then the drug test turns into a body scan, turns into an MRI, and then it turns into needles jammed into places needles should never be jammed into and totally invasive exams done in tissue-paper dresses.

I mean, I’m all for being violated by doctors.

Just not for science.

My dad and I eventually get taken to a grey-on-grey room with fake ferns and the results of my tests in a menacing rubber-banded folder. The woman on the other side of the desk is severe, with a straight-cut bob and french manicure done perfectly.

“Mr. Ampora,” she says to my father. “Your son’s test results were surprising.”

My stomach sinks, like it can already feel the altitude difference of being lowered into a grave.

“Were they?” says my dad, giving me a sidelong glance. I cough, shifting away from my father.

“Have you ever heard of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease?” she asks, her perfect fingernails folding together on her desk. My father says he hasn’t, so she continues. “It’s more commonly known as Mad Cow Disease. It infects certain proteins in the brain, and the prions change shape and spread. Like this,” she says, grabbing a paper clip from under a stack of papers. A part of me wonders if she put it there before this, like some kind of prop for dying families.

“Good prions will always copy the same shape,” she explains, “But if you bend it, like so…” Here, she wrenches the leg of the paper clip until it points straight up. “The prions copy the diseased pattern. This leads to problems with memory, neural activity, memory, coordination…” she says, trailing off with a _C’est La Vie_ flip of her hand. I feel that hand flip like a slap. This is my brain. You’re talking about my brain, and you’re so nonchalant about the fact I could turn into a vegetable?

“Is there a cure?” I ask.

“Um, no. Not at this time.”

What, you run out of stock or something?

“What caused this?” asks my dad. My dad looks pissed off and horrified.

“It could be anything. Genetic, environmental, anything,” she says.

My brain’s decided to have a clear-out sale without my say-so. Guitar playing, vacation memories, walking, Everything Must Go. Congrats, Cronus Ampora! You’re dying! Better luck on the next time around, assuming reincarnation’s shelling out for you! I’m dying. I’m sixteen years old and I’m dying.

On the car ride home, my dad is very quiet. “This is because I yelled at you. Or it’s your genetics. Cronus,” he says, his voice thick. Yikes, dad, don't start crying, jeez. I stare out the window.“It’s okay dad. Doctors can be wrong, y’know?” I say, not looking over at him. My dad takes a hand off the wheel, squeezes my shoulder. It feels like he friggin’ broke it on that, but I just hiss and keep quiet.

My dad holes himself up in his study with his little boats when we get home and I wait for Eridan to show up to tell him I’m gonna bite it. Jesus, I am going to die. God damn. I mean, there’s not exactly a word for this, is there? It’s sort of like in the saturday-morning cartoons, when they open a trapdoor and there’s a good three seconds before the coyote or whatever starts falling? I’m dying. I am going to die. The one-finality-that-isn’t-taxes finally decided to come around to collect. And that, as they say, is the end of that.


	10. Now that I'm gonna bite it, I get my very own pep rally

Do you know what happens when you die in high school?

If you guessed ‘You get a pep rally,’ then you’re either really good at guessing or you can give me a few pointers from beyond the grave. I mean, I’ve been out of school since the diagnosis because nobody’s really been making me go. Plus, God, how weird would that be? I mean, just the thought of all that pity makes my skin feel oily.

Now that I'm dying, though, Aranea Serket actually steps off her cloud and walks my way, for once. Came to my hospital room and everything.

“Everyone’s rooting for you Cronus, we all know you can pull through this,” is what she tells me, the pleats of her plum-coloured dress falling slightly above her knees. Meenah, who came with her and is sitting in one of the visitor’s chairs, shoots me a look that means _Not Everyone._

“That’s good to hear, doll,” I tell Aranea. Her eyes are the blue-grey colour of steel against a winter sky and it hurts me to look at them.

“We’re doing all sorts of fundraisers and awareness events for Creutzfeldt-Jakob, and we’re planning for the pep rally to happen on Friday. It’ll be nice, I’ve worked it all out,” says Aranea, talking with her hands almost as much as with her words.

“Thanks,” is what I say, because as lame as a pep rally sounds I don't want to criticize. At that moment, Nurse Jane came by for vitals/life check/whatever else. Nurse Jane talks like a girl from the 1950’s, speech full of “Shucks, buster!” and “Goshdurnit,” but she’s a solid woman. Soft stomach and toned arms, straight dark hair styled into a soft bob.

You know. Nurse Hot. Hot Nurse Jane Crocker.

“G’morning, Cronus,” she says, unclipping my chart from the end of my bed. Meenah gives her a once-over, and then a stare, eyes lingering longer than what could be necessary. “Hey, Nurse Crocker,” I say, propping myself up a little higher in bed. I mean, I’ve still got my basic nervous functions going, so I’m quite the catch myself.

“You doing okay, buster?” she asks, adjusting her glasses, which are big and cherry-red. Do I have a thing for girls with glasses? That seems like an internal debate for another time.

“Ah, you know,” I say, waving my hand airily. “No seizures yet.”

Jane nods, split front teeth worrying at her lower lip. I think I’ve said the wrong thing. I know the seizures will happen, but they’re not happening yet, more like dark clouds from far away.

“You in pain?” she asks, writing something down on my chart. Thank God, the candy store’s open today. Give me a side of Talk-To-God-ophine and call it a day.

“Very much so, yes,” I say, allowing myself to collapse back in bed. Jane looks at me over her glasses.

“Maybe tylenol, huh?”

“Maybe something stronger?”

“Two tylenol, you rascal.”

Meenah gives me a look of thoroughly unimpressed.

For the friday pep rally, I get to view the whole thing over my laptop. Live stream of everyone wanting me to get better and sending out feel-good wishes. The gym’s done up in banners with my name on them, with purple and gold balloons hovering anywhere there’s space. And so many kids get to open mic about What an Important Person I Was, and My Influence and I don’t even know them. Cheerleaders tumble and flip, trying to whip the crowd into enthusiasm. But every kid looks put out, because it’s just another stupid pep rally. They want to go home and get drunk as hell with their friends, or smoke a j or watch anime with their instant noodles.

I mean, I get it, sort of.

I get my very own pep rally. I should feel honoured, but I feel mostly embarrassed? I guess that’s the word for it. I can flip between different cameras set up, so I do. I get angles of all the feel-good banners and people talking about me. The second-hand embarrassment boils off after Mr. Doze talks about what A Joy I Was to Teach, though, with anger starting to bubble in my stomach, bright and hot, to the point where I feel I’m going to throw up or cry. Because I wasn't. I wasn't a joy to teach, you don't even know me, Doze. You could barely find my name on the roster sheet.

Rage percolates in my stomach, feeling similar to heartburn. Because fuck you. Fuck all of you. Fuck you for living.

I toggle to the principal, trying to call the high school back down to a muted roar of kids not paying attention. Fuck them, fuck them, they get to live and I don’t? I don’t get to go to university or lose my virginity, like what the hell? Why do they?

I’m crying now, my jaw clenching tight enough to crack my teeth. The laptop balanced on the table and hospital blanket jammed between my teeth, thank God none of them can see me like this. My left arm starts to twitch, and I grab onto it with my other hand. I flip the screen one more time, and I see Eridan sitting on the bleachers. He must’ve got called down special, because he doesn’t start high school for another year or two. He looks miserable, the kind of sad that requires you to sink low in your seat and wait for it to move on. Me, though, I’m pissed. I wipe my eyes off on my hand, and change the screen. This view gives me a look into the workout room above the gym, the glass wall allowing people to look down into the court below. Or, in my case, to look in.

My breath catches, because it’s her. Space girl. Space girl is at my high school. She’s standing in front of the glass, hands braced against the window like starfish. Her outfit’s different this time, a short grey jacket with gold buttons and grey fluffy skirt. Ankle boots. But it’s her. She’s looking down at the pep rally, now called into a moment of silence for my stupid dying self. She looks how I feel. She looks heart heavy and wrathful, like she’s seeing it for what it is. Space girl has her jaw clenched tight, full lips pressing together, gold lip ring running like an exclamation point through the bottom one. My head starts to buzz, and my chest tightens up. My Breath. Shit. Tight. Rattling. Nurse Jane. Run. Hold.

“I need some help in here!”

Table. Moved. Space girl. Pep rally. Oh my God. Needle. Goes in. Burns. Fuck. Eyes fluttering. Veins pop. Eyes. Close. Inhale.

“I need to tube him!”

Pain. Skin. Crackling. Dying. No. Everything slides left. Eyes watery. Then dark.


	11. I get Kankri Vantas as a roommate

I’m not sure if I’m awake or if I’m dreaming.

That’s probably a bad sign.

I mean, I don’t remember waking up, but I’m not really sure if I passed out, either. I’m surrounded by the inky blackness of space, far-off stars that people set into crusades and soup spoons breaking up the darkness. I feel like I’m standing, but I don’t see anything underneath my feet. It’s a bizarre feeling, like I’ve gotten locked in the planetarium on a field trip. There’s a far off green glint, and I’m getting slowly hauled towards it. I mean, whatever, I’m floating, I’m moving towards the green light.

Shit, am I dead?

The green light’s yawned into more of an enormous green rift, sparking green and red lightning. Something about it makes my gut twist. I can feel a ripple coming off it, too, a mechanical hum that’s on a level I can’t really register.

No matter what, I can’t get closer to that thing. I feel like I'm going to be sick, and I do not want anything to do with that thing, whatever it is. Make it go. Dazzling green and red are all I can see.

My eyes peel open to the blinding fluorescence of my hospital lights. Oh, thank God. I’m okay.

My dad’s in the room, talking to somebody, maybe a doctor. Their voices fade in and out of the buzzy hum of the lights.

“…Could maybe…months?”

“Started…experimental…seizures.”

I slip back under. When I resurface, Eridan’s crawled up on the bed next to me, graphic novels sprawled across the covers. It’s almost too friggin’ sugar-sweet to be believable.

“What do I gotta say,” I say, my voice scraping out of my throat. “To make you realize I hate books?”

“These are graphic nowels, Cro. They’re _art.”_

That bit makes me laugh. Maybe it might be whatever’s in my IV, though. My body feels light and floaty. Like soap. The graphic novel spread out on my bed shows grey-on-silver underground lab, endless yards of noodley tubes. “Read to me,” I command. Eridan shoots me a withering look.

“I fucking w-won’t, you’re just gonna be an asshole,” mutters Eridan, folding his book back to himself.

“You’re an asshole.”

Eridan shimmies off the bed and back into an uncomfortable visitor chair. “You are,” he whispers. I’m dying and he still can’t be nice.

“No, you,” I whisper back. “Where’s dad?” 

“Getting lunch. Hey, Cro?” asks Eridan, staring me down over the edge of his book.

“What’s up?”

“They told dad you’re gonna ha-wuh more seizures.”

Almost as unexpected as a thunderstorm in March. I don’t even bite into the abomination Eridan made of _have._

The next three days take on a familiarity. Visits from dad, a visit from the stoner trio who bring Starship Ranger merch, visit from Hal who brings Vitriol and my copy of Pop Culture Cameos, my dad, who brings me more god damn books because I obviously do not have enough. And then I get a roommate.

It’s not like I even get to see him get taken in, I just wake up after a nap and then boom. Kankri Vantas is my hospital roommate.

“Hey.”

Kankri looks startled. “Oh. It’s you,” he says, then follows it with, “I am deeply sorry.”

“You and everyone else,” I mutter.

Kankri Vantas shoots me a sidelong look.

“Didn’t I see you smoking up in the bathroom?”

Well, fuck, I am not awake enough for the pending conversation.

“I dunno, boss, that doesn’t—“

“I _did,”_ says Kankri vindictively, rolling over onto his side in his hospital bed to full-out stare at me. “I did see you, and I told you, I told you you’d get sick from marijuana.”

I’m nearly winded from his condescension. “Excuse you?” I manage, because I don’t really think I’m in prime ass-kicking condition right now.

“I tried to extol upon you the dangers of drugs, but you chose to not listen and make your own choices,” says Kankri, pale eyebrows raising towards his hairline.

“You’re saying I’m dying because I smoked up? What the fuck is your damage?” I hiss, glancing back towards the Nurse’s station.

“I tried to exhort you about the perilousness—“

“First off,” I spit, holding up a shaking finger. “‘Exhort’ means multiple persons, you condescender. Second, I’m dying of a neurological disease, so show some kindness. Third, you’re in the same paper dress I am, buster, so don’t go running your mouth.”

“That’s transphobic,” answers Kankri, upper lip curling.

“You’re transphobic,” I mutter, pulling my blanket up and over my shoulders.

And then Nurse Jane comes in for vital check. “Oh, you two guys getting along?” she asks, smiling happily.

“Switch me rooms or I’m ripping out all my IVs,” I answer. Kankri’s cell phone goes off, and he immediately answers. “Hi, mom. No, it’s _fine_ , it’s _great,”_ he answers, rolling his red eyes at me. Jane looks at the two of us, and I fold my arms, twisting my IV line around my finger. “Don’t you do it, buster,” she answers. “I’ll see what I can do.”


	12. I have an honest-to-goodness conversation with Space Girl and receive some hella news

The morphine keeps me up nights. Kankri’s snoring like a Mack Truck in the bed next to mine, and I’ve plugged my earphones into my ears to drown him out. Headlights from cars passing by stripe the ceiling at intervals, and sometimes there’s the high-pitched whine of an ambulance siren. I close my eyes, trying to focus on the eight-chord progression of Cairo Overcoat Experience that battles with Kankri’s mouth noises. I’m almost asleep when somebody pokes my shoulder.

“Go away, Kankri,” I mutter, throwing my arm over my eyes.

There’s a hard jab of fingers to my ribs, enough to make me jump. I rip my headphones off, ready to strangle Kankri.

“What’cha listening to?” asks Space Girl.

My breath escapes my chest in a wheeze. Space Girl. It’s Space Girl! She’s talking to me. She’s real. I yank out my headphones from the jack, and the soft sounds of “Liminal Spaces” by COE fill the hospital room. Space Girl nods, listening along. The weak light of the hospital shimmers off her tied-up hair, which looks as dark and slick as oil. Her outfit’s changed again, galaxy-patterned leggings matched with a dark tank top and lacy bra that I can spot showing through the gaps left by the tank top under her arms. Tattoos swirl over her skin, twining over the skin like creeping vines.

“You’ve been following me?” I squeak out, and I clear my throat.

“I have,” she says, light glinting off her teeth and lip ring when she smiles. Her voice is dark and smokey. Sexy.

Shit, I’m in trouble.

“I mean, if you wanted some, all you had to do was ask,” I say, giving her a winning smile. There we go. I’ve got this, I can do this. I can hit on her. Her smile drops, and she looks immediately disgusted.

“Cronus, I’m going to try to ignore a lot of your personality, because I sort of need you to meet me halfway here,” says Space Girl, crossing her arms under her ample chest.

“I’m all ears,” I say, leaning on the safety railing towards her.

“You’ve seen it, right? The Red Miles?” she asks, eyes serious. Seriously pretty. Wait, no, focus. “You mean the Red Lightning?” I ask, trying to focus on her face instead of her chest or legs or fuck, her hands, even.

Space Girl nods.

“Cronus, the world is in a really bad state.”

“You do not say.”

Space Girl stands and starts to pace. “For lack of a better term, there’s sort of,” she pauses, waving her hands in circles. “A giant hole in the universe.”

“Shit, babe. That’s heavy,” I say, sitting back in bed and watching her move. I immediately hope she doesn’t notice the word choice, but she lets me go on that. “All sorts of weird stuff is coming through. Red Miles, and this asshole Lord of Time.”

“Lord of Time? Wait, is that Green Helmet Guy?” I ask, tearing my eyes off her lips.

“That’s the guy. Okay, so a long time ago, this scientist, Doctor Scratch, he sort of punched the Rift open via universe travel. And cosmic energy’s flowing back at forth unchecked, and it’s messing up everything. Ugh. _Uuuuuugh!_ I don't even want to think about it!" she says unhappily, running her hands through her hair. She looks stressed out, like she’s talking about an office job.

“So basically the Time Lord wants to destroy the universe?” I say, trying to wrap my head around this whole hot-girl-shows-up-and-rants-about-universal-errands. Doc Scratch, why is that name familiar?

“Basically. And the only person who knows how to stitch the Rift shut is the Doc, and nobody knows where the fuck he went. I’m trying to patch it up myself, but it’s an utter mess,” says Space Girl irritably, folding her arms. The motion makes her tattoos wriggle.

“That’s great and all, but I’m sorta wondering why you came to me, instead of like, the space cops, or something?” Jesus Fuck! I said that. I said that out loud. Good job, Cronus. Space cops. Nice.

Space Girl gives me a look. “How’d you think you got sick?”

My stomach flips. “They said it was mad cow disease.”

Space Girl shakes her head. “Nope.”

“More weird cosmic bullshit?”

“You got it.”

“So what you’re saying is, is that there’s a hole in the universe leaking universal chi or whatever and it’s let loose a dude bent on destruction and it’s fucked up my brain proteins?”

“That’s how the story goes,” says Space Girl, nodding sagely, leaning on the edge of my hospital bed. “Okay, so saying this even holds water,” I say, “Why does it matter?”

“Easy. You shut the Rift and find Doc Scratch, he can heal you,” she says, pointing to me with both hands. Like, yes, you! He will heal your thirsty ass of Cosmic Cow Disease, Cronus! It's one hell of an incentive.

“I’ve even got you a thing,” says Space Girl, reaching into a dress pocket and dragging out a laminated green card clipped to a lanyard. “It’s an E-ticket,” she explains, waving it back and forth. “They used to have ‘em at Disney World but they’re discontinued so do not lose this one. It’ll keep you up and running for two, three weeks tops.”

“Only three weeks?” I ask, taking the ticket from her. _Magic Kingdom. Adventureland. New Orleans Square. Bear Country. Adventureland. Adult Admission. Admit One._ “Cronus,” she says softly, chewing on her lip ring. “We’ve only got three weeks, tops.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I only thought this story would get, like, twenty one kudos, tops. I'm nowhere near done yet. Gosh, you guys. Goodness. Thanks.


	13. Space Girl serves me the Terms and Conditions

“Wow. Whoa. You serious?” I ask quietly, glancing over at Kankri to make sure he’s still asleep. His snoring’s stopped now that he’s rolled over onto his side. I can see the pale bumps of his spine peeking out between the gaping paper dress and hospital blanket. Either way, three weeks? The world is gonna end in three weeks? 

Space Girl nods. “I’m doing the best I can, but it’s not good. It…it’s pretty far from good.”

I slip the E-ticket over my head, letting it settle onto my chest. This whole thing is a lot to take in. Cures. Doc Scratch. Cosmic Rifts and Time Lords. All of it’s so YA literature it sort of makes my head hurt. “Is this for real?” I ask Space Girl.

“Unfortunately. I’m real, too, because that’s your next question.”

_Is every part of you real? Would you let me check?_

“You got a name?”

“Porrim.”

Porrim. Space Girl Porrim. Space goddess Porrim. “I’m going to be checking in on you here and there. In the meantime, try to keep your eyes open for signs and coincidences. The further the universe deteriorates the more likely it is to repeat itself,” says Porrim, sitting back down on the edge of my bed and brushing her hair out of her face. I nod. That makes sense.

“Cronus, you need to understand that this is actually going to be super fucking dangerous. So don’t freak out,” she says, turning to look directly at me. “Take Kankri with you.”

“Wait, what?” I bleat, because she cannot fucking be for real on this or I must have misheard. “Why do I have to take him with me of all people?”

“Look, you’re gonna be up against some tough stuff. Won’t kill you to have a travel companion,” says Porrim archly.

“Porrim, come on. Cut me some slack. This guy gets offended by everything, I cannot take his ass anywhere. He’s not an adventurer.”

I’m practically begging. Please, almighty space goddess, give me anyone else as a travel companion. Eridan. Hal. Aranea, because then I might actually get laid. I have as much chance of getting laid with Kankri Vantas as I do….well, as I do normally.

“And you’re an adventurer, are you?” Porrim responds, giving me a dismissive once-over. Ouch. My ego deflates slightly. I’m not that bad a guy. Don’t give me that.

“You still didn’t answer why I’ve gotta take him,” I point out, drawing my knees up to my chest. “Well,” says Porrim, and starts to tick off points on her fingers. “He cares about people, he’s level-headed, he thinks things through. He’ll balance you out.”

“What, you’re trying to set us up or something?”

“Focus, please. He needs to get out of the house, just like you,” says Porrim, sounding very mom-like. The glare she gives is probably also supposed to be mom-like and in a simply fantastic Oedipal twist I find it erotic.

“I’ll talk to him tomorrow morning,” I mutter. “But if he says no…”

I let it hang. If Kankri says no, I’m not going to force him.

“That’s a boy,” says Porrim, reaching forwards to pinch my cheek. I slap her hand away, but not too hard. _Try pinching something else, Porrim_.

I wake up what feels like fifteen minutes later, but it’s actually closer to noon. Porrim’s gone, but the E-ticket’s still around my neck. My stomach sinks. That means I’ve gotta convince Kankri to ditch civilization and go fight space lords. Time Lords. Whatever.

“Kankri?” I say, glancing over. Kankri’s on his phone, thumbs rattling over the screen. “What’s up?” he says, disinterested.

“I’m running away,” I say, ripping out my IV. “You’re what?” Kankri’s eyes snap up to me. I actually feel normal for the first time in weeks. No spaz-outs, no wobbly muscles, nothing. I wrap my hand around my E-ticket, heading to the spare change of clothes my dad brought in a week ago, when I still had the option of getting better. “I’m leaving. Getting the hell outta here,” I say, jumping into a pair of pants.

“Don’t blaspheme. And no offence but aren’t you dying? Don’t you have to stay here?” says Kankri, glancing towards the nurse’s station.

“Kankri, I’m on a mission from God.”

I have no idea why the fuck I just said that. I mean, it’s technically true, but I’m not sure now’s the best time for Blues Brothers. Kankri’s eyebrows pinch together. “You had a vision?” he asks, and he is trying to hard to keep his voice neutral but he sounds a little skeptical. I undo the ties of my dress and throw a shirt on.

“Kankri, come on. I’m going, and you should come with me.”

“No way. Nuh uh. No way.” He even throws his hands out like he’s trying to ward off residual crazy.

“Kankri, trust me when I say none of this is going to matter in three weeks. We need to go. We need to get out of here. Is this really how you want your life to be like?” I ask, waving my arms in a grand sweeping gesture. Kankri stares at me, giving me the same look Mr. Doze gave me whenever I tried to contribute in English. And then he rips out his IV.


	14. Kankri and I go on the lam and hitch a ride

Breaking out of hospitals is a lot easier in movies than in real life. It should be just slip on your clothes and then waltz out the door and away from the smell of hand sanitizer. But the nurses here are like cops, in the sense that whenever you need one they ain’t around but when you don’t want to see one they are everywhere. I feel like I’m gonna be sick.

“We can always go back,” whispers Kankri as we look around the corner at the nurse’s station. Kankri’s got on a heavy bright red sweater and a really bad attitude. I ignore his comment, stepping away from the wall and heading down the hallway like this is definitely a place I should be. Kankri falls into step behind me, and I feel the momentary snarl of his fingers on my backpack before he lets go.

“We’re gonna get busted,” he mutters, slouching lower into the neckline of his sweater. I keep my own head down, making no eye contact until I get to the stairs. I push the door open, hustling Kankri through first before I head after him. We’re off after that, leaping down in sets of three and running our asses off.

“This is insane!” huffs Kankri, vaulting a flight of stairs to thump down on the landing below.

“And yet!” I call down to him. I don’t think I can Spider-Man like that without breaking my ankles, so I thunder down the remaining staircase.

“NO RUNNING IN THE STAIRWELLS!”

Kankri and I both jump, leaning over the railing to look up into the face of a stern narrow-faced doctor. “Sorry, doc!” I shout back, before signalling Kankri to keep going.

The doctor is literally the only slip-up we have. I mean, a code white gets called right after we step outside, so Kankri and I quickly cross the street, heading out and away from the hospital. I’ve got a tight grip on my backpack strap and the E-ticket hanging around my neck. I can't even remember the last time I was able to hold something like this without my hands spazzing out on me.

“Now what? Surely your mission from God had directed you thus far?” asks Kankri, scathing.

I nearly, so nearly shoot something back, but Kankri’s already been hijacked by someone else. A muslim girl dressed all in green has started chattering to him in a mix of animation and panic, and I can tell by the look on Kankri’s face that he has no idea who she is.

“Well, what about you?” she asks me, turning. “You know howtuh change a tire, my dude?”

She’s pale and freckly, with big blue eyes framed behind red-lensed sunglasses.

“I can change a tire,” I tell her, glancing back towards the hospital. I mean, my dad taught me when I got my driver's license about three months back. He said it was something I should know how to do, like it would pay off one day. 

“Bruh! Can you help us out? My boyfriend is totally not a gearhead and I can’t even change headlight fluid or whatever.”

“No problem. Can we catch a ride?” I ask, looking at the revolving door of the hospital for doctors on the hunt.

“For realz? Sure thang! We’re headed down to Seattle, that’s not a thing, is it?” she says, gesturing for us to follow her. “Is it a thing, Cronus?” snipes Kankri. “Totally not a big deal,” I respond smoothly, shooting him a Don’t-Fuck-With-Me look. The look Kankri gives me could probably cauterize a wound.

“Aw, that’s so rad,” she says happily, adjusting her headscarf.

Her name turns out to be Latula Pyrope, and the non-gearhead boyfriend is Mituna. He’s sitting on the hood of an ancient Toyota Timeskip in a vacant parking lot, chewing on a bracelet. He’s wearing a bright yellow helmet, although the chin straps aren’t buckled.

“Latuuuula the van! The van! The fucking! Tires!” he screeches, clawing at one side of his face. “It’s a-okay, babe, I got these bros to come help us out,” Latula says soothingly, gesturing vaguely back to Kankri and me. Mituna brings the bracelet back to his mouth, staring vacantly ahead. “Thumbs?” asks Latula, giving a quick succession of thumbs up, down, and medium. Mituna thinks about it for a moment, and then gives two thumbs medium.

As I work on getting the tire changed, Mituna keeps garbling on and on, mixing profanity and apologies. What the hell is his damage? I mean, yeah, it could be Tourette’s or something but they’ve got medication for that so I’m not sure why he’s so weird.

“I said we could get them to Seattle. That okay, babe?” Latula asks him, like he can understand. “Nngh,” responds Mituna. “I wanna go to the Seattle Con.” “We’re totally heading out to the big gaming convention. Mituna’s a world champ at Keyote Carnage!” says Latula proudly, shooting him a winning smile. Kankri’s been awfully quiet the entire time, on the opposite side of the van from me. I’m not sure if he’s just being pissy or if he’s just not in a speaking mood or what. Their tire’s just flat, and they have another tire in the back of their van, wedged underneath the back row of seats. Not a spare. Another tire. I sort of want to ask why, but I really would like a ride, and asking questions seems like a quick way to get abandoned.

“I think you’re good,” I call after I jack the van back down. “Radical!” shouts Latula, throwing up index-and-pinkie horns. I copy the gesture back to her, and she gives me a big goofy grin. She slides open the doors of the van, gesturing for me to hop in. Kankri’s still standing on the blacktop, looking around the city like he’ll never see it again. Get over yourself. It’s a city. There’s a million others just like Edmonton, it’s not like it matters.

“Yo, dude! You comin’ or what?” says Latula, buckling herself into the driver’s seat and making sure Mituna’s buckled in too.

“Yeah,” says Kankri, climbing in after me. “Sure.”


	15. I learn some more about the travel companions, and Kankri likes rap music

When the mountains around Banff start to come into view, Kankri gets a little antsy.

“Look, Cronus, this is fun and all, but don’t you think we should, you know. Go home?” says Kankri in a tone that says this whole thing is ridiculous.

“No. Why?” I ask, hoping he’ll be honest so I can call him out on this.

“You are delusional,” murmurs Kankri, staring out the window. He turns his phone over and over in his palm, like a worry stone. Already the screen is lighting up with endless streams of text messages, and Kankri looks at it like a reptile handled wrong.

“Hey, Latula,” I call up to her, hoping to take my focus off of Kankri for a while. “How long until we reach Seattle?”

“Roughly fifteen hours, dude!” she responds back. “Maybe more. We have to pull over so I can pray and stuff.”

Mituna’s attention is focussed on a handheld game of Animal Crossing, and he doesn’t respond. Latula starts fiddling around with the CD changer until she settles on what sounds like seriously old-school hip hop.

“Cronus!” hisses Kankri suddenly, grabbing at my shirt. “What’re we gonna do at the border?!” he whispers, red eyes gone round like a bunny’s.

“Crap,” I respond, because I hadn’t thought that far. “Well, that’s great, then,” says Kankri, sounding relieved. “We’ll be detained at the border and they’ll send us home.”

“Or they’ll fucking arrest us because they’re American.”

“Cronus, if we’re going to be on this trip together I will ask you to not contribute to racial stereotypes.”

I unbuckle my seatbelt and wedge my face in between the driver and passenger seats. “Hey, Latula-babe? Kind of a problem,” I say, leaning my face against her chair. “Like what?” she says, keeping her eyes off the road and signalling around a semi. “Well, Kankri and me ain’t got passports or visas or nothing, so we’re wondering about, y’know, border patrol.”

“Man, just chill about that!” Latula says breezily. “There’s a hollow panel in the back of the van.”

There’s a sound of Kankri’s seatbelt unbuckling and him scuffling between the seats. I’m not sure I heard right. A hollow panel. There’s a hollow panel in her van? Are they drug dealers or something? “Are you drug dealers?” I ask, shooting her a smile like hey-I’m-only-joking. “You know it, you fucking spic,” spits Mituna, his villager planting a passel of flowers. “Whoa there!” says Kankri, turning around. “The use of that word is triggering and the history behind it is beyond terrible and oppressive! Don’t use it!”

“Yeah, babe, that’s uncalled for. We’re not, um, we’re not drug dealers,” says Latula, almost apologetically.

The flat land outside is gradually getting rockier as we change from prairies to mountains. The snow is getting deeper, too, actual white postcard-worthy snow instead of muddy slush. “You’re drug dealers!” says Kankri, scandalized as he thumps on the hollow panel with his hand.

“Pays the bills,” says Mituna, shooting Kankri a look over his shoulder. “Besides, you guys are clearly on the lam for something totally not-rad you did, so don’t be pointing fingers. It ain’t cool,” says Latula, giving me a glance in the rearview. I slump back into my seat, buckling up my seatbelt. I’m on a roadtrip with a Muslim drugrunner, her retarded boyfriend, and Kankri Vantas. Dear Porrim, please send me a cosmic sign so I know I got into the right van.

“How ‘bout some tunes?” says Latula, I guess trying to gloss over the whole drug-dealer thing. She turns the music up a little, revealing it to be Rapper’s Delight.

“I fucking love this one,” intones Mituna, his voice flat and emotionless.

“Yeah, but can you rap it?” asks Latula, and the glance she gives him is so full of come-on and just goddamn adoration it makes me sick. How the fuck can a girl like that even love a retard? It’s just not fair. Kankri, in response, clears his throat.

“I said a hip, hop, the hippie, the hippie to the hip-hop and you don’t stop…”

The Timeskip goes silent as Kankri dictates the whole verse with nary a fuck-up. It’s so quiet, it’s almost church-like. Here we gather to listen to Kankri Vantas, the first of his name, recite Rapper’s Delight. Praise be upon him and to his weird hip hop cred.

“Day-umn!” says Latula when Kankri runs out of breath. Mituna nods in approval, staring out the window and shouting “A DEER!” I look, and there’s no deer. Mituna cackles with glee.

“Where’d you learn to spit like that?” asks Latula, slowing down as we start to pass through a tunnel. Kankri smiles, looking smug and insufferable. “My half-brother likes hip hop. I learned a few so that we could relate on such topics as Tupac versus Biggie and such.” The lights of the tunnel engulf us all, pale Kankri glowing in the dark like an anglerfish.

“That’s so sweet! Wish I had a sister,” says Latula, looking like a pair of floating glasses in the gloom. “Oh, no you do not. Allow me to tell you….” Kankri launches into a long story about his half-brother, and I lean my forehead against the window, gradually closing my eyes and tuning out their conversation.


	16. Unlockable Lore #1: Cairo Overcoat Experience

[Excerpt from Lore.Com, your source for all things pop-culture conspiracy.]

Unless you’ve been living in a Black Hole, you know about Cairo Overcoat Experience [Abbr. COE]. This all-female group formed in 1997 and hit the charts with their now-platinum first album _Showtime_. Their successful career, which spanned ten years, also allowed for the releases of albums _Vagabounce_ , _Sunslammer_ , _Volume Seven_ , and _Hadron Kaleidoscope_. “It’s so friggin’ awesome to do what we do. It’s like, totally amazing to see how people react to all of this, especially since I used to live above some dude’s garage once and I thought fo-sho it was gonna be the end of everything,” said lead singer Roxy Lalonde in an interview with _Spin Me Round Magazine_.

The music of Cairo Overcoat Experience was said to produce feelings of inner peace, euphoria, and honesty, with large concert proceeds going towards anti-violence and space travel campaigns. “I just think we need to invest in what’s important,” said bass player Jade Harley in an off-the-cuff interview outside a show in Austin, Texas. [This quote needs citation. Help edit this page!]

However, during the _Greatest Music Festival for the Benefit of Humankind_ (2007, Amsterdam) COE simply vanished. Rumours of kidnapping, foul play, and retirement swirled around the darkest corners of the internet [Citation needed].

Did music’s most famous foursome grow tired of the limelight? Or, as some internet rumours suggest, did they consume each other in a grisly backstage quadruple cannibal homicide?

To this day, COE has never been found.

See also: _Aliens from Musically Advanced Planets_

See also: _Roxy Lalonde_

See also: _Jade Harley_

See also: _Feferi Peixes_

See also: _Rose Lalonde_

This page is a stub. You can help by expanding it and donating!

Edit this page?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This thing has really gone off the rails. Thanks for all the kudos, guys. I really don't deserve it.


	17. Kankri and I beat the border and get to Seattle

Kankri squirms, and I pinch him hard on the arm. All in all, a hollow panel-space in a Toyota Timeskip is not a great hiding space. If we get busted by border control, they will have to prize Kankri and me out of here limb by limb. The hollow spot is very dark, very cramped, and can definitely not fit two people. And yet, Kankri and I are pressed together as uncomfortably as possible. The guy has the boniest kneecaps I’ve ever encountered in my entire life.

A hand comes down on the hollow spot, and Kankri flinches. Just in case, I wrap my bicep over his mouth, cutting off any sound he could be making. I faintly hear Latula talking to the border control officer. Her voice is chipper, although the words are indistinct. I wonder if they have dogs out there. Slobbering canines with wild teeth.

I hear the back doors of the van close, and Kankri starts sliming his tongue across my arm in an effort to release my headlock. In response, I flex my arm, the sharp point of his nose poking into the pit of my elbow. Kankri’s nails dig into the skin on my back like the teeth of a snake.

I gotta let Porrim know what a great idea this was. I’m having the time of my life.

My bicep gradually relaxes, and Kankri pulls his face away, pushing my arm away with his head. I remember reading somewhere a confined space with someone was supposed to be sexy. This isn’t sexy. I’ve been lied to. I’ve been had. Or maybe Kankri just doesn’t do it for me. After what seems like an eternity of discomfort between me and Kankri, the van slows to a stop and the back doors open. The panel slides out of the way, with Mituna shoving his grinning stupid face as close as he can.

“Rise and shine, motherfuckahs!” he screeches, grabbing at me and Kankri.

“Augh!” says Kankri, squinting against the sunset. 

I gradually unfold from the van, spotting Latula praying by the side of the road. “So we’re in America?” I ask, looking around.

“You know it, boyo. Welcome to the You-nited States of Waterboarding and Texas.”

Kankri’s rubbing his arms and legs, trying to get circulation back into his fingers and toes. “You know, I dunno if this is really a good way to spend my time. I would greatly like to have a small get-together about this,” says Kankri, eyes flicking between me and the setting sun.

“Motion….denied!” droned Mituna, raising his chewable bracelet back to his mouth.

“Hey, my dudes! You ready to get back on the road?” calls Latula, rolling up her prayer rug. “Two seconds!” I answer, standing up to stretch my legs out. They feel like putty, but at least they’re not twitching. Mituna slides the hollow panel shut again, hauling skateboards and equipment over it and tossing a beat-up Brooklyn Dodgers hat to Kankri. I grab onto the E-ticket again, running my hands over the edges of it as I hop back into the van.

Around ten that night, Mituna and Kankri have already dropped off to sleep. Kankri’s still got the Dodgers hat balled up in one fist, and his phone in the other. I wonder if I should just take that phone from him, toss it out the window. Stop him from getting back home. The way his fingers are wrapped around it, I don’t think I could get it away without waking him up. “Yo, you still awake back there?” asks Latula, keeping her eyes on the road. “Barely,” I respond, watching the cars go by on the opposite stretch of road. The speed limit in America is ridiculous fast. Cairo Overcoat Experience’s Gloria Euphoria is beeping out of the radio.

“Can I ask you something, bro?”

“Shoot, babe.”

“What’cha running from?”

That questions throws me, for a minute, because what am I running from? Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease? The universe? My dad?

“I’m kind of dying. I’m throwing in for a last-wish roadtrip before I bite it,” is the answer I give.

Latula tsks in disappointment. “That’s such a bummer. That totally sucks.”

I don’t answer, so Latula keeps talking. “Hey, you wanna hear my idea of the afterlife or whatever? It doesn’t totally jive with my religion, but I’m not really like a lot of other Muslim girls. I’m sort of radical and I board and game and I’m just totally different,” says Latula, rubbing at her eyes. “I think that when you die, your soul goes to a different, like, room? Like a small room with a bed that’s got a patchwork quilt, and it’s in a house? Overlooking the ocean? And, like, it’s always sort of raining, with rain knocking into the windowpane and on the roof, and it’s totes chill and there’s no real anxiety or pain. It’s just your own little ocean house.”

I mull that over, staring at the back of Latula’s headscarf. It does sound nice. A little ocean house for the rest of your un-life.

“Is that stupid?” asks Latula, sounding a little uncertain, like she accidentally told an embarrassing story.

“I dunno,” I answer. “It sounds nice.”

“Word,” says Latula, exhaling hard. “Mark my words, that’s what I’m putting in for when I kick it. It’s a lot nicer than the day of reckoning.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” I answer, looking out of the van window to see if the stars are out yet. If they are, it’s still too bright on the road to see them. The only stars I get are street lights.

“I’ve got a question for you. Are you really drug dealers?” I ask, thumping the flat of my hand on Latula’s seat. Latula heaves a heavy sigh. “Yeah. We kind of are. But,” she says, raising a hand off the wheel. “But, there’s sort of a story behind it.”

Isn’t there always a story.

“See, a while ago, me and Mituna got in a really bad car accident. I mean, my bae, Mituna, he got really…he got really wicked brain damage. He couldn’t walk and he couldn’t board and he, um,” Latula gives a strained smile. “He didn’t really recognize me all that well.”

“Okay,” I say, letting her know to keep going, but mostly I wanna hear what Mituna’s deal is.

“So like we tried to sue the guy who hit us? But the lawsuit didn’t work, which is total sucksville, and we’re stuck with a lot of lawyer fees. So we’re sort of doing what we can to pay that back and get Mituna his meds and rehab therapy, and yeah, we sort of are drug mules.”

God damn. “That’s quite the story,” I answer, feeling a little sleepy and stretching out as much as I can in my seat.

“Well, yeah. And I don’t know, you know, because what we’re doing is wrong. We’re selling drugs. That’s wrong and that’s bad and I don’t want to be a bad person, dude. I don’t want to be a bad person,” she says, her face gradually folding up as if by saying this it brings more weight onto her than off.

“I don’t think you’re bad. You’re a really sweet chick, Latula.”

Latula pushes her glasses up her face so that they rest on her forehead. Tears cluster on her eyelashes like suicide jumpers. She sobs, once, but quietly, and pushes the back of her hand into her mouth. “I’m sorry, yo. I’m just tired,” she says, quietly.

“I can drive a little, if you want,” I offer.

When we pull over to switch, Latula gasps. “Dude, look! Man, whodathunk you’d get lightning storms in spring, huh?”

Seattle is really something, although we pull in fairly early and there’s not much awake. Do you have any idea how hard it is to get access to anything remotely liberal in Alberta? It’s like Canada Texas, complete with cowboys. But Seattle is like, rain, and beaches, boardwalk aesthetic, and music and the people are mixes of hipster and emo and straightedge and everything and I am so happy. Kankri doesn’t partake in my joy.

“We’re here, Cronus. We’re in Seattle. Now what?” he asks, straightening his Dodgers cap. Mituna let him keep it. Him and Latula bid us a happy goodbye a few streets back, basically letting us hop out of the car and driving off.

“Maybe we’ll run into you later,” I had said, grabbing my backpack out of the back of the van. “Insha’Allah, bro. Maybe,” said Latula, giving a tired wave. I got the feeling she didn’t sleep a lot, even with my four hours of driving. Mituna just swore at us and was all too pleased to kick us to the curb. “Where are we going?” asks Kankri, sticking closer to me than a disease.

“Gimme a minute to figure it out, okay?” I answer, glaring at him. Kankri huffs. “Y’know, I thought this was just gonna be a weekend at Lake Louise or whatever.”

“Well, sorry that this isn’t living up to your expectations,” I say with more snark than necessary. Kankri glances around, eyes flickering from Starbucks to Starbucks. “I want to go home.”

And right then, right there on some street corner in Seattle, I get one of Porrim’s universal signs. There’s no real flash of lightning or Space Time King or whatever. On a poster-filled cork board, a certain purple-and-green poster stands out.

“This,” I say, tapping my finger on the chest of Rufioh Nitram, poster boy. “We’re going to this.”


	18. Kankri and I go shopping and Porrim and I totally don't go on a date

“Wait a second,” says Kankri.

“Why?” I answer, shouldering my backpack. “It’s an adventure, chief!”

“Cronus!” snaps Kankri. “Can you just shut up and listen to me for two seconds?”

I glance over my shoulder at him. Kankri has both hands braced on the straps of his backpack, and his breath is coming out in gulps.

“What are we doing?” he asks. “What’s going on? You haven’t told me anything! We’re on an adventure? Why? Cronus, I abandoned my family and my mom is so frightened and anxious on my behalf,” he says, not breaking eye contact with me.

“So what? I left my family behind too,” I reply. I mean, he’s not the dying one here.

“I was in that hospital for a reason too, Cronus! And now we’re here, we’re here because of you! You did this! You did this to! Me!” Kankri hisses, stepping closer and getting up in my face. I lean away almost instinctively from him, and people are starting to stare at the two idiots fighting in public. “Whatever, Kankri. How about we go get breakfast and we talk everything over, okay?” I offer, shooting passerby quick smiles. Look, we’re okay! We’re also not together, because I’m not like that! Go back to your lives!

“Really,” says Kankri coldly. “That’s probably the least you can do.”

After a greasy breakfast and a retelling of the whole story from muscle twitch to red lightning to Time Lord, Kankri is silent. “So,” he says after mulling it over, pushing the remains of an omelette around his plate. “Three weeks, huh?”

“Three weeks,” I confirm, nodding like this makes sense. Kankri’s eyes momentarily dip towards my E-ticket, but I can tell it’s still a tough sell for him. “I’m unsure I can really believe this,” he murmurs, glancing back up at me apologetically. “I mean, Cronus, you…you do know how this sounds, don’t you?”

I do. I know it’s crazy, but Kankri, cut a boy some slack, this is better than waiting around to die. Mortality makes my stomach sink. Yeah, I’m grasping at straws because I have nothing else.

“I mean, I can accompany you for the time being,” he says, spearing an uneaten sausage I left on the corner of my plate. “But after we go see this Rufioh Nitram character I am going home.”

“Alright, Kankri, not that I can force you. I’m only dying of an incurable disease, and this could be my dying wish,” I say, adding a forced cough for effect. Kankri rolls his eyes, but there’s still a faint flicker of a smile. “So, whaddaya wanna do until the show?” I ask. If we’re gonna be here and it’s Kankri’s last day, he should get to pick what to do. “Well, I sort of need more sunscreen. I don’t know if you’d understand, it’s an albinism thing,” says Kankri, “And I’d sort of like to pick up more clothes.”

The bus ride out to the closest mall is brutal. Seattle public transport is goddamn unreliable. It also doesn’t really help that neither Kankri nor I know the city, like, at all.

“We should also book into a motel and get some sleep,” says Kankri, staring out the bus window. There’s a car accident. Seattle seems to see a lot of those.

“See, Kankri, this is why you should stick around. You keep a brother organized.”

“Don’t use the phrase ‘a brother’, Cronus, that’s cultural appropriation. Your white privilege is showing,” says Kankri, leaning his face on the window. Maybe he should just go home so I won’t have to put up with his shit. When our stop comes up, I stand up to let Kankri off the bus, and my calf muscle twitches. Despite the fact that this is probably the sign of neural relapse the most I can manage is mild irritation. Like, gosh darn my neural system for choosing to spazz out right now.

“Alright, then!” says Kankri, not noticing my relapse. “We meet back here in one hour, got it?”

I don’t have a watch.

“Sure.”

To be fair, I end up wandering aimlessly and checking out all the different eye candy. Which sort of brings me to the nebulous territory of my sexuality. I mean, what the fuck is even going on there. Do I like boys? Do I like girls? What? Actually, whatever, I’ve got better things to worry about. I end up in a store that seems to specialize purely in t-shirts and fluorescent lighting. I push aimlessly through different shirts, sliding sizes back and forth without really looking.

“I think this would look nice on you.”

I look up to see Porrim, a deep green v-neck displayed expertly across her fingers. Today’s outfit is a sixties-cut minidress in black and jade green, matched with green heels and lipstick. “Somehow, I don’t think so,” I mutter, turning back to the clothes. Porrim makes a disappointed noise, and the v-neck disappears. Between little glances out of the corners of my eyes, I see Porrim looking disparagingly over the selection. “Cronus,” she says, lip curling. “This collection is terrible.”

“Aw, come on,” I answer. “Can’t be that bad.”

“Find one thing here you want. I dare you,” says Porrim, pulling her arms in as tight as she can, as if she can as if she can catch t-shirtitis. I look around, scanning the shelves with purpose. Because now it’s a dare. Now it’s a challenge. Now I have to find the worst shirt in the world. And because my luck has yet to stutter out on me, I immediately find the worst shirt in the store.

“I’m going to get that one,” I say, pointing at a shirt displayed on a dismantled mannequin torso. Porrim audibly gasps, one of her hands flying to her throat like an offended PTA mom. “Cronus,” she says, scandalized. “Don’t you dare.”

The shirt, in question, is bright yellow, with _MUCH ADO ABOUT PUSSY_  emblazoned on it in big white letters the size of my palm. It’s perfect. Offensive, yellow, and vague Shakespeare joke. “I might even cut the sleeves off,” I tell her, smirking. Porrim’s expression changes to one of outrage.

“That is so _tacky!”_ she hisses, as if I’d uttered blasphemy by talking about cutoff t-shirts. I easily flip a shirt off the rack and waltz up to the cashier.

“Think about what you’re doing!” implores Porrim. “It might not fit!”

“Well, yeah,” I tell her. “That’s why I gotta cut the sleeves off. Make room for the guns.”

I smack down my debit card and use my college money for this ugly t-shirt.

“Cannot believe you,” says Porrim haughtily, shooting me a disdainful look. The purchase goes through and I'm the proud owner of this ugly-ass shirt. Her lip ring makes her sneer seem larger. We leave the store, my purchase in one hand, and we’re heading back towards the food court.

“I’m simply unbelievable, babe,” I respond, giving her a winning smile.

“That’s one word for it, yeah,” she answers, rolling her eyes. Her eyes are so nice, even when they wound me so.

Looking around at the crowds, I notice that people’s eyes seem to slide right over her or through or past her or something. “Hey Porrim?” I ask quietly. “Can they see you?”

“Nope. Just you, O chosen one.”

This is going to make public flirting extremely difficult. I mean, I’m technically already crazy what with cosmic cow disease eating holes in my brain but I refuse to lose the opportunity to make this girl feel like a woman.

“Get me fries,” says Porrim, punching me in the arm softly.

“Begone, apparition, and get your own fries.”

Porrim punches me again, a one-two right to the shoulder. She’s got a lot of muscle in those two hits, and despite the size difference between us I flinch away from her third one. I sort of get the feeling Porrim could really mess me up if she wanted to. “Fries,” she says with finality. Well, whatever, the universe wants fries, and I’m not one to deny.

We end up in a bookstore later, because something about it seems to have a familiarity. Trips to the mall with dad and Eridan and bookstore after. I end up in the anime section, Porrim right by my side.

“How’s the universe?” I ask her, because we’re alone in the stacks so I’m not too worried about being labeled a weirdo. Porrim shrugs, munching on her fries that she insisted on soaking in vinegar. “It’s holding together for now but it’s not gonna be good forever.”

“Y’know, you’re awfully nonchalant about this,” I point out. Porrim reaches out to tap a particular series. “Isn’t this the one your brother likes?” she asks. Her lipstick’s smeared slightly around the knuckles of her fingers, turning them a faint green.

“I don’t think so,” I answer, pulling it out anyway. What the hell was that one called? Damn, now I feel like a shit older brother for never listening. This one is built around Norse Myth, something about an all-powerful god being trapped in the body of a lawn gnome. I put it back, turning to say something to Porrim. She left her hair loose today, and it’s falling in her face. She bends, momentarily, to look at the lower shelves. And I don’t know. I don’t know what happens. It’s not the immediate lust response. Something about her is so, not, not pretty, exactly, but there’s a sort of grace about her that makes my chest expand. Pretty, gorgeous, graceful, hot as fuck. Space Girl. Porrim.

“You okay?” asks Porrim, balancing precariously in her heels, fries held daintily in one hand. “You look sick.”

“I just realized something,” I say.

“Oh really?” says Porrim, sneering at the cover of some schoolgirl-based manga.

“Yeah. You know. A girl. A guy. A bookstore,” I gesture around. Porrim doesn’t react, just keeps flipping over borderline-pornographic manga so the spines are hidden.

“Where’re you going with this, Ampora?” she asks faintly, not really listening.

“Alone.”

Porrim momentarily freezes, fingers settling. She’s listening now.

“It’s not like that.”

“Gee, Porrim,” I say, tucking my hands into my pockets. “Sure feels like a date to me.”

She shakes her head. “You wish, Cronus. Society dictates that whenever a man and a woman collaborate in a social situation apart from groups it automatically makes it a date. You know what I think?” she says, folding her arms under her chest, keeping her fries cradled in one hand.

“Lemme guess. You think it’s bullshit?”

“I do think it’s bullshit. Girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.”

I feel like I’ve ruined something. Should I apologize? What do I say? We stand in silence for a while.

“Not even a little bit?” I ask.

“Fuck’s sake, Cronus.”

Kankri’s been waiting for fifteen minutes because he chose to get there early. He’s even booked a small motel room for the two of us, and drags me and his four million shopping bags back to the room for a good three hours of sleep. “You get anything?” he asks, looking pointedly at my lone shopping bag. I feel like I’m about to get mugged.

“Just this,” I say, revealing the shirt and preparing myself for a lecture. It doesn’t come, though, as Kankri just starts to laugh. “Oh, that’s so true!” he says, his eyes squishing into crescents with laughter. He gets down on his knees to check his mattress for bedbugs, giggling the whole time. “What, you’re not mad?” I ask.

“No! Feminism is a total wash, anyway,” he says, dropping the mattress back to the box spring, evidently bug-free. “Besides,” Kankri continues. “There’s so much more important, relevant movements to work towards. Prejudice, judicial reformation, black lives matter, heck, All lives matter. Sure, _feminism_ might be important, but we need to be focussed on the human race. They’re killing people for their skin colour, Cronus. That’s fucked up. You get the couch, by the way.”

Although Kankri falls asleep easily enough, I can’t fall asleep on the stupid pull-out couch. I mean, Porrim just bent over in heels. This doesn’t mean I’m in love with her or that we’re gonna settle down. Can she even settle down? Is she human? Besides, I’ve felt that way about tons of people. The logical part of my brain doesn’t buy a word of it. I roll over to stare at the ceiling. Sunlight’s still filtering through the curtains, falling upon a bolted-down mass-produced painting of a countryside.

_Her voice makes me feel like a symphony she makes me feel like music._

I bite down on the inside of my arm, pushing my forearm over my eyes. I’m such a sap


	19. Kankri and I go to a show, and I trip over myself

The fluorescent lights of the hospital sting my eyes, which immediately water up.

“Hey, good morning! Welcome back, buster!” says Jane, who’s swapping out my IV. What the hell?

“Jane, what’s going on?” I ask her, staring up at her, honestly confused out of my mind. Almost immediately, everything seems to slow down, like the air’s turned to oil.

“….Microseizures,” says Jane, arms folding. I didn’t even hear the start of that sentence. There’s an advertisement for a used-car dealership selling everything for Cheap Cheap Cheap blaring way too loudly somewhere, and it filters through my head weirdly.

“Stay awake for your dad?” That comes from someone else, but already my eyelids are fluttering.

“Cronus?”

“Cronus?”

“CRONUS!”

I jerk awake, a small puddle of drool forming on the inside of my elbow. I’ve rolled onto my stomach in my sleep and was nearly suffocating myself. Kankri stands over me, hands on hips. It’s so weird being towered over by someone who’s five-three. “Get up and get going!” says Kankri, exasperated, folding his shopping stuff into neat little squares so they fit in his backpack. He’s still wearing the heavy red sweater.

Groggily, I get off the couch and start looking for my shoes.

Rufioh Nitram’s show, as it is, doesn’t even look like it’s being held at any sort of club or seedy bar or anything. It’s just some dude’s house in a halfway step between an actual neighbourhood and a housing project. Sure, there’s kids toys in some yards, but there’s beer cans in others, the grass is mostly scrub, and the fences are all chain-link. Kankri pays for the cab ride out here, reluctantly fishing out a debit card from his back-pocket wallet. It seems he’s run out of complaining juice for right now, and is passively accepting whatever I can throw at him. Either way, between his red sweater and both of our backpacks, we don’t exactly fit in with the pierced-up shaved-down crowd that’s making their way towards this crappy bungalow.

“Watch it!” snaps a guy I bump into, his massive eyebrows furrowing together into a wrathful caterpillar. He’s a lot bigger than me, closer to seven feet than to six. He looks like he could eat both me and Kankri. Holy Fee-Fi-Fo-Fuck.

“Sorry, boss!” I say, holding up my hands in a no-harm-no-foul gesture.

“Oi. You.”

My ear is immediately grabbed, and twisted, with sharp fingernails digging into the fleshy cartilage. Oh, God, I’m gonna get my ass kicked. My hand immediately wraps around my E-ticket, reassuring myself it’s still there. I’m towed along through the doorway and through the house, passing a kitchen full of people until we head out the back door.

“You help,” says my captor, letting go of me. My ear immediately floods with heat, and I think she might have popped the skin. “Look, babe, there’s a lot of stronger guys, but I could, ah, maybe pay a different way?” I try, but she’s not listening. Instead, she emerges from a separate garage holding a massive speaker, which she dumps into my arms.

“You drop? You die, Ang Mo.”

She’s ridiculously pretty, an Asian girl with hair piled up high in a Winehouse beehive, thick lips rouged with poisonous-red lipstick with tattoos of dragons and goldfish and mythological monsters splashing over her arms. “Inside,” she intones, in a thick, implacable accent. My arms are already starting to shake with the effort of holding this damn speaker. I about-face, toddling back into the house with this massive thing. I’m not sure where to put it, so I set it down as gently as I can in a living room off the kitchen. I don’t see Kankri anywhere, and I hope he didn’t get abducted or anything. I turn around to keep helping out the girl I met earlier and I nearly knock someone over.

“Oh, snap! You okay?” I get hauled back onto balance by a guy with a red solo cup in one hand.

“Y’all seen Damara around here? She’s supposed to be unloading and I need to help but I’m doing a lotta dodging.”

My brain locks up. My mouth goes completely dry, and my palms go clammy.

“You okay?” asks red solo cup guy. I’m momentarily transfixed by the movement of his mouth.

“I dunno?” I squeak, and then momentarily clear my throat.

“What?” he says, squinting in confusion. “Hold up, I gotta get you outta here.”

He reaches up to grab the collar of my shirt and tugs, momentarily, trying to get me to follow him, and even though he’s not touching me, I do. Biology is a weird thing to think about, especially when you’re crowded together with a bunch of leather-jacketed weirdos who give you dismissive once-overs, an Asian girl who’s recruited you as a temporary mover because I guess I look similar enough to be a stand-in for the guy who’s ditched out on her, and you’re following the guy who ditched out because he makes your hard parts soften and your soft parts harden and in the words of Shakespeare I am God Damn gonna Follow that Feeling because Who’s Gonna Know.

In short, he is unfairly hot and won the genetic lottery.

“Sorry, braj, I have just played so many shows that I can barely hear anything anymore,” he explains, pulling me into a spare bedroom that’s so narrow I can place both hands on either wall without straightening my arms. “Anyway,” he says. “You were saying?”

I was saying. I was saying something?

“I’m Cronus.”

Master of conversation.

“Wicked name, dude. I’m Rufioh.”

The audible gasp I give isn’t voluntary. I’m making a total mess of this conversation. Dear Porrim, please advance my Cosmic Cow disease to kill me right now. Yours, Cronus.

“Aww,” says Rufioh Nitram. “You’re probably like, my biggest fan, right?”

How can one person be so cute? I am a lot taller than Rufioh. Even with his mohawk and boots, I’m still a head taller than him. He’s so tiny. I could pick him up and run away. “I came all the way from Canada,” I tell him, like I’m a goddamn twelve-year-old. Marry me, Rufioh! I’m your biggest fan!

“That’s a long way,” he says, his eyes crawling over me.

“Yeah, and—“

And I’m off. I spiral into the story for the second time in two days, heavily editing the parts that are less than legal. Over the span of the story, Rufioh’s smile slips a few notches, and his eyes fix on my E-ticket. “Lemme see that,” he says, snapping his fingers at it. I grab onto it, holding it out, and he snatches it, turning it over and over like he can’t believe he’s seeing it. He makes a dismissive sound, letting go and it thuds back into me.

“Cool stuff,” he says like his heart isn’t in it. “Still kind of brutal, though. Even with that thing, you’re still gonna kick it.”

Oh. Well, yeah. I’m not immortal. That’s a sort of messed up way to view it, though, like I’m prolonging the inevitable.

“I mean, don’t take it like that,” says Rufioh, punching me lightly on the shoulder. “We’ve all gotta go sometime.”

Right then, I notice the tattoos that run over both forearms, from the wrists to the pits of his elbows. Both are of bamboo forests, tall thin spikes that run like train tracks. They look especially green against the brown of his skin. Rufioh’s still chattering away happily. He seems pretty upbeat for a punk rocker.

“—I mean, Damara’s native Singaporean, and nothing can be good enough for her anyhow. But the thing is, you’ve gotta throw yourself into what you love, alright?” he says, pushing past me to fumble across a dresser for an iPod. “Yo, Cronus, listen to this!”

And that’s how I end up standing in the doorway of someone’s bedroom absolutely agog as Rufioh swaps from song to song to song, too quick for any of them to hit the chorus more than once, and we talk about music. Because fuck yes! Music!

“I mean, The Cairo Overcoat Experience is pretty much the best band to walk the Earth, yeah?” says Rufioh, happily playing hooky from his gig. “Everything you hear now has their fingerprints on it, from riffs to choruses to lyrical style and it’s _cool.”_

“No shit,” I say as Rufioh picks something riotous from the Dead Kennedys. “But they experimented with every style before they found the COE sound.”

“I know! That’s what’s important!” says Rufioh happily, toggling past Sex Pistols and some Britpop-punk band whose name I can never remember. “I want to do everything, I want to be everything. I want to be like Roxy Lalonde, y’know? I mean, I’m pretty young and I’ve got my whole life ahead of me. I’ve thrown out some records. Whatever. I’mma be a brand legend. People are gonna hear my shit and be like, ‘Hey, that’s Rufioh Nitram!’”

“You got it, boss,” I say, sliding to the floor.

Damara doesn’t so much knock on the door as flat out kick it in. “Rufioh!” she screams, following it up with a stream of angry Chinese. Rufioh rolls his eyes, pausing his music. “Damz, chill out, it’s fine,” he says. “Don’t yell.”

“Rufioh, what the fuck! Can’t believe you’d just….pang seh!” she spits, shooting me a glare full of poison.

“We were just hanging out,” I answer. Damara waves me off with a backhanded flick of her wrist.

“Look, I’m sorry, okay? We just lost track of time. I’ll go out there and I’ll play great, okay?” says Rufioh, stepping closer to her. Jeez, he’s really short.

“Go out. Play. Then,” she says, pointing to herself. “Get high.” Then she points to him. “Clean up everything-lah.”

“That’s fair,” he answers, giving her a small smile.


	20. Rufioh goes to bat for us

I trail out at the end of the line, Damara leading, Rufioh following sheepishly, and me slouching behind.

“Cronus! I’ve been looking for you everywhere! She made me set up a drum kit all by myself!” shrills Kankri, pointing an accusing finger at Damara, who gives him an icy look.

“Do you not know how to do that?” I ask. “Do you want, like, help?”

“I…” Kankri blusters momentarily, before answering with a decisive, “Yes!”

The drum kit is mostly laid out like a skeleton that’s been taken apart, and it’s just a matter of putting everything together. Kankri hovers by my shoulder, watching every move I make and committing it to memory. Eventually Damara shoves me out of the way, snarling something along the lines of “Suck my dick.” Kankri snaps at her for perpetuating harmful stereotypes. “Chill out!” says Rufioh, who’s messing around with one of the amps. “Let’s not fight about this.” The rest of the band turns out to be the giant I bumped into earlier and a girl with a severely-cut bob and raccoon eyeliner. Damara settles in behind the drums, giving the pedal a few kicks and making the bass drum pound.

“Yo, Cronus,” says Rufioh. “Can you try to pull everyone in here?” He’s pulled out a light green Ibanez from God knows where, and gives me an appraising look.

“Sure thing, daddy,” I respond, almost brightly. For a second, it doesn’t click. It’s by accident. It’s a Freudian slip. And then my brain notices that there’s an alarm going and by then it’s too late to do anything. Damara gives me a look that’s downright lecherous, and Kankri mouths a _daddy?_

“Um, Daddy-o. Sure thing,” I respond, shooting Rufioh a couple of pointer finger guns and pulling Kankri out behind me.

We start at the backyard and work our way inwards, steadily directing straggling party-attenders into the house. It’s a fairly easy task, more like herding cats into empty boxes than actually rounding people up. “So,” says Kankri, and I can hear the smirk in his voice. “Daddy, huh?”

“Daddy-o. I said, I said Daddy-o. It’s retro-cool, Kankri.”

“I bet it is,” says Kankri, following it up with an embarrassed laugh. “You’re so thirsty, Cronus, I’m not sorry.”

“Shut the..shut up, Vantas.”

The pounding noise of Rufioh Nitram and the rest of them seems to work its way through the entire house, like its too strong to be held in a physical space. “God, I wanna be in there,” I say as we pass by the living room to make sure we got everyone. “Why? It’s so loud and there’s too many people,” Kankri responds, sounding faintly disgusted. I don’t think he gets it. Music like this, it makes me feel alive. It’s the best thing the world can offer. As stupid as punk rock is, it sounds different when its being played right next door to you. Rufioh’s guitar playing sounds feverish, like he’s only got a limited time to play so many notes. Does playing like that ever make his fingers bleed? Is that why the music sounds the way it does?

Kankri and I drift into the living room right as they finish off with the last chords. “That,” says Rufioh to Damara, “That was way too slow.” She responds with a rude finger signal, reaching behind her for a water bottle. The crowd’s responding enthusiastically enough, a mess of cheers and hollering and people out of breath from dancing. For a moment, they don’t look so tough. I mean, okay, those two over there obviously got in a fight but despite the bleeding it looks like they’re sharing a general sense of camaraderie.

“Hey!” somebody from the back shouts. “Rufioh, this dude wants to talk!”

“Wassup?” answers Rufioh, turning around. The sweat on his arms momentarily illuminate his bamboo tattoos, and there’s a current of raised vertical lines that run in line underneath the ink. They look like stitches. Kankri sees them too, and he hisses in a breath.

The crowd doesn’t so much part so much as be physically repelled by the person who wants a word with Rufioh Nitram. Right away, my right leg locks up, and I clamp a hand on Kankri’s shoulder to keep from falling over. “You okay?” he asks, turning to me with eyes wide with panic. “No,” I spit, my teeth gritted. “This isn’t okay.”

He hasn’t changed much since the last time I saw him outside my neighbourhood. His green helmet glistens faintly, eye sockets empty. The whorls in his armour seem to pulse, emitting sickly red light.

“Oh my God. Who’s that?” asks Kankri, reaching up with one hand to grab onto my wrist. “Remember that Time Lord guy?” I respond, and the cramp races down my leg to snarl up my foot. I’m kind of thrilled that Kankri can see him too. Kankri can see him too. That’s good.

“No way. Not possible,” he breathes, staring and shifting his weight so I can better balance on him.

“You again, huh?” asks Rufioh, pointing at the Lord of Time. “Told you once, told you again. No dice.”

The crowd rallies around that a little, murmurs of assent rippling around.

The Lord of Time shrugs, his shoulders cracking with the movement. Then, slowly, he raises his arm to point at Rufioh’s guitar. Rufioh tightens his grip on it. “No,” he says, his face impassive. “You can’t have this, either.”

The Lord of Time snaps his fingers. It sounds like a lighter trying to spark. “I said no,” Rufioh repeats. Damara stands up behind him, drumsticks held tight in her left hand. The Lord of Time thinks it over, and then pivots on the spot to point to me and Kankri. Kankri gives a small shriek of fear. Black spots start dancing in front of my eyes like moths, and my ears immediately start buzzing.

“You leave them alone. You get outta here,” says the giant, holding his bass guitar by the neck as if he means to cleave the Lord of Time’s green head from his shoulders. People start edging towards the doors, slowly trickling out and away and then running as soon as they get far enough. I don’t blame them.

“Wait, hold up, hold up. How about this? I’ll play you for them,” says Rufioh, picking out a few notes on his Ibanez. “If you win,” he says, “You can keep my guitar. But if I win,” he pauses, clamping his hand down on the strings, cutting them off. “You get on outta here and don’t come back.”

The crowd’s mostly cleared out by now, but the few that are left let out a low _ooooh_ of approval. The Lord of Time’s arm drops to his side, thudding into his body heavily. Kankri moves in as close as he can to me, pressing my backpack into my chest while he’s got a tight grip on his own. Rufioh Nitram, however, is totally unfazed. He starts with a four chord melody, staring straight at the Lord of Time. The four chords begin to shift into something more complicated but always coming back to the same beckoning note. It’s a challenge. It’s a come-on. Rufioh Nitram smiles like he’s about to tell the biggest joke in the universe. He keeps playing the same note. _Vum. Vum. Vum. Vum._

“You don’t need to do this,” I say, the words out of my mouth before I realize I’m talking.

“What, you scared? C’mon,” says Rufioh, straight-up ignoring me. He launches off into a full out guitar tear, leaping away from his one note to something closer to the stuff he had in Vitriol. He’s good. I dunno if he’s good enough to go all Orpheus on Kankri and me’s behalf, but I’m gonna bank with him on this. He’s got this. Hope swells in the middle of my chest. Rufioh can win this. I believe in him. I believe in Rufioh Nitram and his calloused fingers and bamboo tats.

And I guess the Lord of Time realizes this, too, because he reaches fluidly over his shoulder, and withdraws his rifle. Damara gives a shout of warning, but Rufioh, if anything, plays faster, staring down the Lord of Time, who takes aim and fires. The rifle emits a light purple beam, which punches straight through Rufioh’s chest, effortlessly cracking through his ribs like a stone through a wasp’s nest. The room erupts into a panic, with the last of the crowd surging out of the room and out of the house.

“Fuck! Cronus! What the fuck!” screams Kankri. “Whaddowedo?” I don’t know. I don’t know what to do. I feel like I’m watching the director’s cut of an ending that wasn’t shown. This isn’t how it’s supposed to happen. Rufioh was supposed to win and send the Lord of Time howling to lick their wounds somewhere else. Rufioh drops to one knee, hand dragging off his Ibanez to press to the front of his chest. He wheezes in a couple breaths, and then says, “You cheated.” The Lord of Time stoops in front of him, in front of Rufioh, and grabs the underside of his helmet, and lifts it up for Rufioh to see his face. Rufioh’s eyes widen, and then he gives a small, weak smile.

“How about that, huh?” he says.

The Lord of Time slides his helmet down, points at Rufioh’s guitar, and then beckons with his fingers. _Time’s up, kid. Fork it over._

“Oh, you want this?” says Rufioh. Blood’s started running over the edges of his hands, soaking into his shirt and slowly making it’s way to the waistband of his pants. Slowly, laboriously, Rufioh slings off his guitar strap, letting the instrument fall. The auxiliary cord rips out, emitting a sharp scream of feedback. Almost immediately, Kankri jumps on that guitar like a rat on a cheeto, his fingers snarling around the neck and pulling it to his chest and away from the Lord of Time.

“You cheated,” says Kankri, eyes steely. “It’s not yours.”

The Lord of Time towers over Kankri. Kankri sets his jaw and holds the Ibanez by the neck. Rufioh’s gone from one knee to lying on his stomach, blood beading around the edges of his mouth. I use Kankri as a shield, kneeling over next to Rufioh. “Cronus,” he says, breathing irregular and wheezy. “You…you gotta go back to where this all started. You gotta take it and go.”

The guitar? I have to take the guitar with me? Oh, god, is this his last wish? Time Lord reaches for me, and for a moment I can almost imagine his gloved hands closing around my throat.

“Where this all started?” I repeat. Rufioh nods, wincing with the movement. I brace my arms around his back, supporting him and trying to help him breathe a little easier. “I thought I wanted to try this a little sooner,” he says quietly, both hands pushing into the middle of his chest. “I was so wrong, and I’m kind of scared.”

And I want to say something brilliant and meaningful but instead, Kankri kicks me in the side. “Cronus!” he screams, pushing the guitar into my hands. “Go!” “What about him?” I ask, shifting Rufioh to the floor.

“Ow, fuck, careful,” he mutters.

“Forget about him! We need to leave!” screams Kankri, and turns, pushing past Damara and what remains of the crowd.

And we do. I leave Rufioh on the floor, Kankri and me put our stuff on our backs and book it like demons out of hell. The Lord of Time emits an inhuman roaring noise, and his footsteps thud down the hallway towards us. Kankri and I push through the screen door and head down the empty Seattle street, following corners and nearly losing each other and insane with adrenaline until we’re sure we’re alone.

“Cronus! Cronus he killed him! He killed him!” Kankri says, pressing a hand to his mouth. I’ve still got Rufioh’s Ibanez pressed to my body, and there’s small bloody fingerprints on the edge of it where Rufioh last touched it. A part of me disagrees with him. Technically, we killed Rufioh Nitram. It’s not like we phoned for help. There are splotches of blood on my forearms. I sink to the cracked, weedy sidewalk, cradling the instrument as carefully as I can.

“Cronus,” says Kankri. “You haven’t said anything. Is this…Cronus, there was nothing we could do. Who’d believe that? We’d be deported, you know.”

He’s not wrong.

“Cronus,” says Kankri, the gravity of his voice bringing me back to Earth. I look, and I see a fork of Red Lightning strike down behind us, scissoring out of a black sky. Far away, I can see a small silhouette against the carnage. It could be Damara, but I’m not sure. “Cronus,” says Kankri, again, desolate this time, pulling his arms in close to himself. “Cronus, the world is going to end in three weeks.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay so before I posted this, my word count was 19 thousand something. I mean, that's not bad, considering I wrote the most of this stupid thing in the span of three months. Thanks for reading and the comments and kudii and everything you leave behind. It's really nice, yeah?


	21. The Cosmic comes through in a travel ad

Kankri and I end up in a twenty-four-hour diner called the Konstant Kettle, trying to sober up at one in the morning over bad pancakes and terrible coffee. I don’t even know how pancakes can be this terrible. Kankri picks at his plate, and I hold my coffee mug in two hands. Our backpacks are squished in on the bench seats next to us, and neither of us say anything. The Konstant Kettle is mostly empty, holding a few paramedics and a couple burnt-out party kids, their glow-stick necklaces dribbling radioactive juice down their chests.

“That’s what we’re up against?” says Kankri quietly, staring down at the table.

“Yeah.”

Kankri nods slowly. “I don’t think we can win this.”

“Well, yeah, but we’ve gotta try,” I answer, taking a sip of my terrible coffee.

“Have you heard from Porrim recently?” asks Kankri, glancing over at me but only getting as far as my hands.

“Not since the mall. She showed up but she didn’t say anything about this.”

Kankri sighs and says, “I am so triggered by this death and morbidity.”

He seems weirdly unfazed by the fact we literally let a man bleed to death not even twenty-four hours ago.

“Where did this all start?” I say, wrapping my hand around my E-ticket. I glance down at it, and see that it’s starting to fade. Magic Kingdom has gone totally white, and the green colour is fading around Bear Country.

“Do we have to go home?” asks Kankri, glancing up at me, his brow furrowed. “Is that where this started?”

“That doesn’t make sense,” I tell him. “What’s the point of coming all the way out here just to go home?”

“True,” admits Kankri, and we lapse back into silence. I reach for the newspaper that someone’s folded up and tucked in between the ketchup and napkin dispenser, spreading it out on the table. It’s not even the full paper, just the back-end ads. I skim over them, passing over _Strap on your pith Helmets! Archaeology classes coming to University of Edmonton!_ and _Send this lawn gnome home!_ and a story about a hijacked tourist-trap pirate boat until I land on something else.

“Yo, Kankri. Check this out,” I say, holding the paper up and reading the ad out loud. “‘Are you lost with no direction? Come to the place where dreams come true!’”

“No way,” says Kankri, looking incredulous. I flip the paper around, let him check the ad out for himself. “The wording is sort of spooky, no offence to anyone,” he murmurs, before tearing the ad for Disney World vacations out of the paper delicately. I mean, it all makes sense. It’s all coming together in a weird cosmic way. Damn, Porrim said this trip would be dangerous. The thought of Rufioh hits me like a gag reflex. Maybe it’s not super easy after all.

“How’re we gonna get there?” Kankri muses, mostly talking to himself, before cracking a smile at something else he found. He flips the paper back to me, and taps a pale finger on an ad for Rocinante Bus Services. “Pack your stuff up,” I say, digging in my wallet for change to pay for sober breakfast. “We’re going to Disney World.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter this time. Those long ones slay me.


	22. We board the Rocinante bus line in search of broader adventure

“Do you want your receipt?”

“No, I’m good,” I answer, punching in my debit’s PIN number. The man behind the counter has a weird sloth-like appearance, with a long, thick neck and heavy-lidded eyes. Kankri’s in the bus station store, buying everything he thinks we’ll need, and I’m getting the tickets. Maybe there’s something to be said for the buddy system after all. The tickets are still expensive though. Goodbye, sweet college fund. The station for Rocinante bus services is a grimy grotto of a building. I feel like I should be shooting zombies, and I keep looking over my shoulder for weird sewer mutants to suddenly loom out of the shadows to feast on my spinal fluid. Kankri’s waiting impatiently outside the bus when I come out with the tickets, one hand tapping out an irritable rhythm on his backpack strap.

“Cronus,” he says, unbuckling his backpack when he spots me. “You’ll never guess what I found.”

“Cosmic bullshit?” I supply, handing him his ticket, which he immediately holds in his mouth.

“Even better,” he mumbles around his bus ticket, and hands me a white package. It crinkles in my hands, and I turn it over to be hit with a health and safety warning.

“Oh, no way, chief! They had these?” I ask, ripping the top off. “I know, right?” he answers happily, pulling his backpack on again. He’s swapped out his sweater for a black t-shirt with a hashtagged name I don’t recognize. The packets Kankri found are Clodhoppers. They’ve been discontinued for years. They are literally addictive, and they come with warnings on them. Actual, honest to God warnings about how addictive this candy is. Clodhoppers is essentially chocolatey, toffee flavoured crack cocaine. Kids used to hoard them at school and only traded them out for thick stacks of Pokemon cards. The teachers were always trying to crack down on Clodhopper-Pokemon trade, but, much like real drug dealing, we just got sneakier.

I couldn't make this up if I wanted to.

“Tastes like Halloween,” I mumble as Kankri and I head to the back of the bus. Kankri momentarily reaches around me to snap the ticket out of my hand and hand it to the driver.

“I got cards, too, if we want to play cheat,” says Kankri, throwing his backpack into an overhead bin once we get far enough back. Cheat’s no fun with just two people, but I’m not gonna tell him that. “Were you in any of my classes at school?” I ask, trying to change the subject. Kankri shakes his head.

“Nah. We were in the same class in eighth grade, though.”

I try to think back to my blurry middle-school days. I don’t remember him. Does that say more about him, or me? “You have crushes on anyone?” I ask. I’m not sure why. It just immediately pops into my head and out my face. Kankri presses his lips together, eyebrows furrowing together. “Not….not really?” he answers, scratching at one side of his face. “I mean, I don’t really think I’m like that.”

“Like what?” I ask, slamming the overhead bin shut and throwing myself down across the double bus seat.

“Cronus, don’t be so avaricious. The bus seat is for both of us.”

“You,” I say, jabbing a finger at him. “You are dodging the question, boss.”

Kankri forcibly grabs onto my ankles, shifting my feet to the floor and sitting down next to me. “I don’t owe you an explanation.”

“Whatever, Samwise. I just think we should be honest with each other. As universe buddies,” I say, swinging my feet back up to seatbelt Kankri to the bus seat. Kankri momentarily fumes, before speaking. “Aro ace,” he says, digging his hands into my shins.

Those combinations of syllables mean nothing to me. It must show on my face, because Kankri says, a little patronizingly, “Asexual Aromantic. That means I feel neither sexual nor romantic attraction to any gender.”

“So, what you’re saying is, nobody? Ever?”

Kankri shrugs, like it’s totally not a big deal. I can’t seem to wrap my head around it. Nobody? Ever? But there’s so many hotties! It’s practically criminal to not pay your dues.

“Is this triggering you?” asks Kankri, a small note of concern tinging his voice. I don’t feel triggered, but I’m wondering how deep this goes. No porn? No crushes? Ever? God, what does he do all day? Is that why he reads so much?

“Is that why you haven’t fallen for my good looks and rakish humour?” I ask instead, breaking the silence and bending my knee to hit him lightly in the face. “I’ll fall for it when I see it,” he says, pushing my knee out of his bubble.

I gasp, trying not to break into laughter, but it happens anyway. I slide back into my own seat, leaning against the window. “You’re so mean to me,” I tell Kankri.

“Someone has to keep you in line.”

_“So_ mean,” I mutter, slouching low in my seat.

“What about you? Who did your romantic poet heart affix itself upon?” asks Kankri, shooting me a look that implies my heart is less romantic than implied. For a moment, Porrim comes to mind, flowing hair and curves and totally out of my league and never impressed. “Actually,” I answer, “You know Aranea Serket?”

Kankri’s look melts to one of abject horror.

“No! Not Aranea!”

“What’s wrong with Aranea?”

“She’s like, totally problematic, Cronus!” Kankri says, running his hands through his hair. “She treats people terribly! She’s said racist things, and she tries to play off how she acts with a good person façade.”

 

The bus begins to lurch into motion, slowly pulling away from the station. Neither Kankri or I acknowledge it.

“Oh, I’m not into her _personality,”_ I say, grinning in what I think is a wolfish manner.

Kankri makes a disgusted noise. “You’re probably just attracted to her because she treats people in a way you think you should be treated.”

Heat rushes to my face. “What the hell d’you mean by that?”

Kankri opens his mouth to respond, and pauses, before saying, “Y’know what, no. I’m not getting into this. I’m sorry Cronus. Not now. I’m sorry for you being hurt about this.”

What do you mean, not now? You don’t even know me, Kankri. In a way you think you should be treated. What does that even mean. It doesn’t mean anything. I like myself. I respect myself. I like myself, stupid, you don't get to say stuff like that.

“You want more clodhoppers?” Kankri asks, like he’s trying to pass it off as a peace offering. I shake my head, my jaw too tight for me to speak.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright! This might be the last update for a really long time. I'm going to be starting my second year of university in the fall, and I have a lot of courses to pass. Yee, education! That being said, I probably won't write a lot in the intervening months between now and winter break. Remember when I said updates would be random and sporadic? That. THAT.


	23. Porrim and I have a conversation, she can't see the future

Someone’s ruffling my hair. I’m not quite sure who, and there’s a weird squeezing pressure on my hand, curling around my fingers with a sharp point in the middle of my hand. It’s probably more weird neural pathway stuff, or left over from a dream. I’m still on the bus, Kankri snuffling in his sleep, with the Ibanez cradled across his chest. I shake my hands out, getting rid of the squashed feeling. 

Porrim’s sitting in the seat in front of me, turned around with her head poking over the seat like a kid on a field trip. “You alright?” she asks, looking at me with something like concern. “You looked like you were having a weird dream.”

“Nah, don’t worry, I’m okay,” I answer, keeping my voice down so I won’t wake up the whole bus. Porrim bites her lip ring, her concern not letting up. “You sure you’re okay?” she asks again, her manicured fingers curling into the headrest. It’s weird for someone to ask twice. Most of the time it’s just a quick sign-out. You okay? Yes? Continue!

“Aside from dying slightly slower than usual,” I answer. “I think I am just fine and dandy.”

“Well, good to hear,” she answers, matching my tone.

“Don’t you know it.”

Porrim smirks, folding her arms over the headrest, the little buttons on her sleeves flashing in the weak light. Her outfit’s changed again. Again! This girl never wears the same thing twice! Today’s is a dark green jacket with gold studs and fancy little bullfighter shoulders. I can’t see the rest of her, so I’m going to have to make do with just the jacket. The green eyeshadow’s finally made a return, shining like the skin of a snake. My stomach sinks, momentarily, and not in the nice, Cronus-in-love sort of way. What happened in Seattle won't go away by itself, and I'm scared about that. I should ask her about Rufioh, see how deep her knowledge goes. Did she know it was going to happen? Is this all a predestined adventure that I’m just playing a role in? If so, why would I get picked? Instead of this deep, mortal soul-searching, I say, “Hey, Porrim, do I have low self-esteem?”

She purses her lips momentarily, her eyebrows working in concentration. “I dunno,” she says. “I mean, I’m not going to lie to you.”

“So you think I do?”

“Oh, Cronus, come on,” says Porrim, twining a strand of hair around her finger. “I’m not gonna be a good little cheerleader and rattle on about what a good guy you could potentially be. I mean, I’m not your ego boost. You should aspire to be better or love yourself more because you want to, not because you think I should.”

“Porrim,” I say, glancing over at Kankri to make sure he isn’t waking up. “You are really good at giving half-answers to questions you don’t want to answer at all.”

“What can I say?” she answers, shrugging modestly. “It’s a talent.”

That makes me laugh a little. “That a spirit guide thing?”

“I won’t speak for all of my kind, so mark it as a maybe.”

“Some-one is evay-sive,” I singsong, turning my head coyly to the side to stare out at the passing landscape. I’m not quite sure where we are. Oregon? Edge of Washington? Wherever we are, there’s spooky fog, pine trees, and a Twin Peaks vibe that seems to lurk outside the bus like a fairy-tale beast.

The next question pops out of me like a spit bubble. 

“Porrim? Did you know what was going to happen in Seattle?”

“What happened in Seattle?” she asks, sounding genuinely curious. That makes me cold. Suddenly, I don’t want to talk about it. She doesn’t know. How can she not know about this? Rufioh Nitram died! He died right in front of me and Kankri! Maybe her cosmic powers stop short of future vision? Even then, that’s scary. I’m up against the whole universe and my space guide can’t help me.

“Do you know what’s going to happen?” I ask, my own voice sounding numb. It’s a simple question. But right now, I feel like I’m grappling with something I can’t really define.

“I can’t see the future,” Porrim admits, levelling her gaze towards me. There’s no trace of joking with her now. I wait, momentarily, because it sounds like she’s going to add something else. _But I can shoot lightning. But I can glow in the dark. But I’m the last princess of some space warrior clan so I think we’re okay in the skill department._

“That it?” I ask, because I hope she’s got some sort of magic space ability. “Can _you_ see the future?” she says, slightly sardonically, resting her head in the space between seats. I feel like she threw that one back at me. I’m just supposed to go on a quest! I don’t come equipped with magic bullshit! That was supposed to be your thing!

“No, Porrim, I cannot see the future.”

“Yeah, so why worry about it?” she says.  “That’s a good point,” I say, leaning back in my seat as much as I can. Porrim shrugs, like she’s the part of the trio who comes up with all the good ideas. I stare outside at the giant trees and fog and spooky atmosphere. I don’t feel like talking but I somehow feel like I need to say something. Which I guess is what explains the tangent I head off on.

“I remember, when I was really little, and Eridan wasn’t born yet, my mom used to take me to the library all the time. And I really only liked one book and she’d just read that one book to me because I wasn’t so great at reading.” I liked the stories, though. And I liked the children’s corner of the library, because it was designed to look like an enormous tree and there were mobiles of Winnie-the-Pooh hanging from the fake branches.

“What book?” asks Porrim.

“The Very Hungry Caterpillar,” I respond, giving the title the intonation it deserves. “And when I wanted snacks my mom would call me the very hungry Cronuspillar.” I glance over at Porrim to see her fighting a smile, before she crackles into laughter. I’d expect some kind of dainty laughter but Porrim’s laugh is a throaty cackle. Lord help me.

“Y’know,” she says, laughter lines crinkling her nose as she smiles. “That’s a really nice story.”

“Good, because I don’t have a lot of them.”

“Ooh,” says Porrim, her eyebrows quirking together. “You’re in a mood.”

I keep silent, because broody silences are quickly becoming a way to communicate, and instead choose to change the subject. “Where’re you gonna go after this? I mean, you’re not human, so you won’t stay here,” I ask.

Porrim blinks, face slackening into surprise. I don’t think she thought this far either. “I…I’m not sure?” she says, momentarily glancing out the window. “I don’t know what’s gonna happen to me after this.”

“But you’re gonna go away, right?” I ask, and I know I’m pushing it, but I need to know. I want to know.

“Cronus,” she responds, rolling the _r_ slightly. It kinda gets to me, and she knows it. “What do you want me to do?”

I don’t know if I want her to stay but I immediately get an internal reaction from deep in my brain and gut at the thought of her leaving. I feel like my circulatory system got put on lock. The idea that I could go back to my stupid house and my stupid dad and my stupid life with nothing else makes me want to fold up and disappear. It’s super weird and sorta clingy, I guess, seeing as I barely know anything about her. Maybe Kankri is right about me. “Look,” says Porrim, reaching forwards and pressing a hand to the side of my face. “I don’t know what’s gonna happen after all this. I don’t even really know for sure how this whole shebang is going to play out. But guess what?” she says. There’s a silence. I don’t move. The bus goes around a turn, listing slightly to the left.

“You have to guess,” she says, slightly irritated.

“I’m gonna totally fuck up?”

“No!” she says. “Well, maybe. But you’re gonna be okay!”

“Aww, thanks, babe,” I say, grabbing the hand that’s still pressing into the side of my face. “I feel loads better.”

“All in a day’s work,” she says, turning her hand to pinch the inside of my wrist.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Annnd there's the update for September! I've got the one done for October as well, but it's in serious need of editing or more jokes or something. I don't know when October's will be out other than, y'know, October. November and December are distant hazes crowded by midterms. Thanks for reading and all the positive feedback, y'all are too kind.


	24. Kankri screws us over monumentally

I jolt awake as the bus rolls to a stop. I guess I fell asleep after Porrim and I had our conversation. My hand drifts up to squeeze my E-ticket. It’s still there. Jeez, I can’t believe I’m wearing a friggin’ lanyard to save the world.

Kankri’s puff of hair has styled itself into a tumbleweed, and has gone completely flat on one side. He yawns so wide I can hear his jaw pop. “Where are we?” he slurs, shifting my backpack and Ibanez to me. “I think it’s just a rest stop,” I answer, watching the other tourists file off carefully into the aisle to trudge outside. Which is great, because I really need to pee.

Kankri slides out into the aisle, shifting his weight from side to side in order to bring feeling back into his legs. He stretches his teeny arms over his head, arching his back, and his shirt rides up.

Or at least, it should. But it doesn’t.

“Yo, Chief, how far up do your pants go?”

Kankri drops his arms with a groan. I follow him into the aisle, grabbing our backpacks out of the overhead bin. You shouldn’t leave shit on the bus. That’s how you get robbed.

“How, and more importantly, what,” says Kankri, voice edging into icy territory. “Do you mean?”

“Well, you just stretched, and I’m wondering, like, you know.”

We step off the bus and into the Oregon gloom. Man, breathe in that fresh air. I feel like a fucking lumberjack.

“Hey!” the bus driver calls over to us from her high-and-mighty bus perch. “This is only a ten minute stop! If you’re not on, we’re leaving without you!”

“Sure thing!” I respond, waving her off.

“Why is it anyone’s business how high my pants are?” says Kankri, folding his arms and giving the bus driver a curt nod.

“I dunno,” I answer. “Why’s my cosmic universe sidekick wearing mom jeans?”

“They’re not mom jeans!” snaps Kankri, slouching towards the gas station-dine and dash that seems packed with everything we could possibly need. I grab onto the back of Kankri’s shirt, raising it over his hips. “Cronus! Let go!” Kankri screeches, swinging his arm around in a tight circle and hitting me in the side of his face with his elbow.

“Ow-uh! And what the fuck, do you have your pants pulled up to your armpits or something?”

Kankri flushes, letting loose a small, frustrated bellow before stalking away. Whatever, it’s not like it’s my fault he gets so pissed-off over a little teasing. I refuse to feel bad about this. I am going to laugh at Kankri’s denim thorax for the rest of my life. He hurt my face, I’d call it even.

Inside, Kankri’s taken up one of the tables at the dine-n-dash, one foot jouncing on the black and white linoleum. The other tourists are milling about, looking at racks of magazines or CD towers of former stars that had only one name. I try to ignore the gas station kitsch and try to be the bigger person.

“Are you mad?” I ask, folding my arms.

Kankri’s eyes jerk up to meet mine. His tongue momentarily pushes out his cheek, like he’s testing a sore spot.

“Maybe,” he admits.

“Look, I,” I start, and rub at the back of my neck and the words muddle together. “Umsorry.”

“What was that?” asks Kankri, expression shifting to incredulity.

“Ugh. Fine. Sorry.”

“You’re apologizing?” he asks, astounded.

“Why is that so surprising?” I ask, and I’m trying to not be mad.

“I dunno,” Kankri continues, wriggling momentarily to get his phone out of his pocket. He doesn’t even look up at me, instead glancing over to a shelf of small model boats. “It just seems a little out of character. Maybe years of amassed guilt is finally preying on your soul.”

“Wow. Okay, wow. Actually, forget I said anything. I don’t know how you can say stuff like that without even batting an eyelash,” I say, hoping maybe he’ll listen and maybe learn to zip it.

“It’s not my fault some people are sensitive to truth,” he answers, tapping in the lock code and then thumbing through various squares on his phone. “Cronus, look!” he says suddenly, smile pushing over his face. “I’ve got free wi-fi!”

Whatever. I dump my backpack at his feet, Ibanez clanging in disapproval.

When I’m washing my hands in the bathroom, I have my first seizure on record. I mean, yeah, I may have had one or two in the hospital, but this is the only one that’s registered so far. Truthfully speaking, it wasn’t that bad. Everything smelled really strongly of like, burned sugar, to the point where I felt like I was going to puke. And then I stopped being able to feel the water on my hands, which wasn’t terrible.

I mean, falling over was worse. Waking up with a headache and ears ringing so loudly I felt like a blown-out speaker was worse. But, like, what sort of got to me was that nobody really came to check on me, and by ‘nobody’, I mean Kankri. I don’t know how long I was in there for sure but the thing is that nobody really cared enough to be like, “Oh hey, Cronus has been missing for a while.”

And so, wandering out of the bathroom, trying to wipe off the spit-up post-seizure puke, because evidently my brain thought that was a great plan to spit up everything so I could choke on it, thanks for nothing, Creutzfeldt-Jakob, I see that Kankri hasn’t budged from the same spot. However, in the worst game of spot-the-difference, there’s no bus outside and everyone is gone. The dusty parking lot outside is devoid of life.

My mouth goes dry, and for a moment I worry it’s the warning sign of another, smaller seizure. Like maybe I hit my head too hard and I’m totally hallucinating there being no bus.

“Kankri,” I ask, stomach sinking. “Where’s the bus?”

“Outside,” he mumbles, then follows it with, “Stupid Tumblr update.”

“Kankri,” I say again, trying to keep my voice even, because this does nothing to calm my nerves. “Are you sure?”

Kankri freezes momentarily, then unthaws quickly, spinning around to look behind him at the empty parking lot. “Cronus!” he shouts, turning back around. “The bus is gone!”

Oh, thank God. There’s a rush of gratitude in response to the fact that, yes, the bus has definitely left us behind. My brain is still firing reliably on a few cylinders. I can hear Kankri squawking and panicking over how could he miss the bus, oh no, oh no, now how’re we gonna get there, and I feel spaced out and different from all of this. Whether or not Porrim planned all this out for me, Kankri and me, we’re still stranded at a gas station in Probably-Oregon. So it really doesn’t surprise me when I start howling with laughter. I laugh until my throat catches and my eyes water. I laugh until I choke.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there's the one for October! I have midterms next week, and I haven't even started the November chapter. So this'll update when it updates, I guess. Also, this chapter took a way darker turn than I was expecting. Jeez, Cronus, lighten up.


	25. We go on a nature hike

The resulting nature hike does not make us better people. We do not get more in touch with nature. We keep being embittered, caustic assholes to one another.

“Look, Cronus,” says Kankri irritably, “I said I was sorry.”

He’s behind me, a little ways back. He’s pulled his red sweater back over his t-shirt, and he’s jammed the Dodger’s cap back onto his head.

“That’s great, Kankri. I mean, we’re still relatively fucking stranded and you’ve basically doomed the universe, but hey, at least you’re sorry about it!” I shout back, pulling my backpack straps tighter. The Ibanez digs into the space in between my shoulders like an albatross.

“People make mistakes!” says Kankri tersely.

“Yeah, people make mistakes! _You_ just fucked up, chief!”

“Clearly nothing I say is going to make you forgive me for something that wasn’t even my fault to begin with,” Kankri says disdainfully. “Why can’t you just call your universe guide to assist us? Assuming she even exists.”

“She does too exist. And she’s not answering.”

We fall momentarily silent, still crunching our way along the shoulder of the highway. I try to keep from grinding my teeth, so I say, “Y’know people die on highways all the time? They get run over or picked up by serial killers.”

“Cronus, if you do not shut up,” says Kankri. “You are going to be one of those people.”

We trudge along a little while longer, neither of us saying anything until Kankri says, “Cronus, hold on, I’m calling my mom.”

I look back at him, and he’s tapping out the number already. “Kankri, chief, what the hell? Don’t phone your mom, what’s she gonna do?” I ask, digging my hands into the straps of my backpack so they bite against my palms. Realistically, we’re in the middle of nowhere. Kankri’s mom isn’t just going to come pick us up. We’re on our own out here.

“Cronus, she doesn’t even know if I’m alive. Plus, I don’t see you coming up with a better idea,” says Kankri, raising the phone up to the side of his face. He looks more worried than I’ve ever seen him, back to the pale ghost who stood with me on the night Rufioh died.

“Don’t be lame, Kankri. The universe’ll come through for us,” I say, feeling my face lifting into a sneer. Kankri ignores me, turning around and covering one ear. “Mom?” he says, his voice small. “Mom, it’s me.”

I can’t believe this. “Hi, Kankri’s mom! We’re in Oregon! Probably close to Salem! You know what they do to witches up there, right?” I shout, cupping my hands over my mouth. Kankri shoots me a disapproving look over his shoulder. “Mom, slow down. It’s okay. I love you too. What was that?”

Spare me the feel-good bullshit. I keep walking, letting the sound of Kankri’s conversation drown out behind me. The asphalt crunches slightly under my feet, and I know that eventually, eventually, someone will pick us up or we’ll get to another gas station and figure out where to go from there. I’m fine. I’m capable. I’m not the one phoning home like a kid at summer camp. The fingers on my left hand snarl up by themselves, and I give them an impatient shake.

“Cronus, wait!” calls Kankri.

“You gonna go home?” I call over my shoulder, not even turning around. When there’s no answer, I turn around to see Kankri staring down at his phone screen.

“Then fine! I don’t need you out here with me. I don’t need you anyway!” I say venomously, squaring up for a fight. Kankri palms the phone, turning it steadily over and over.

“I gotta go home,” says Kankri, his voice steady. “Cronus, my test results came back.”

“Test results?” I repeat. Test results? What test results? The anger in me sours slightly, almost as if it’s recoiling a little bit.

“Why’d you think I was in the hospital, you imbecile?” snaps Kankri, glaring at me from under the brim of his Dodger’s cap. “Irregular mark, see?” he says, turning and yanking down the shoulder of one sweater arm. I can see the top of a raspberry-coloured patch, something that looks itchy and painful. It looks very stark against the paleness of his skin, like he’s been shredded to the muscle.

“My mom thought it was a skin infection. Maybe even skin cancer. So she took me in and for some reason they put us in the same room together,” he says, pulling his sweater back up. He still sounds authoritative, as if that stupid mark doesn’t mean anything.

“So what were your results?” I ask, glancing down the road behind him in case a car comes to cut our journey short.

“Inconclusive. They need more tests.”

“What? Kankri, chief, you’re not dying unless they say you are.”

“You have to admit,” says Kankri with a shrug. “It makes sense to put two dying kids in the same room.”

I never even thought about this. I never really considered that Kankri could be sick, too. It bottoms me out. Kankri’s sick. Kankri could be dying just as much as me, but he doesn’t have an E-ticket.

“Fuck,” I tell him, raising a hand to tug on my E-ticket. “I dunno if we can both get cures for this.”

“Whatever,” huffs Kankri. “There’s not exactly going to be much of a point to a cure if the universe gets torn asunder.”

I gesture for both of us to keep going. My stomach growls, like it's holding the rest of my anger. We’re walking next to each other, locked into tight silence, and then Kankri breaks the silence again.

“Have you called your parents?” he asks suspiciously, like he’s expecting me to narc on him. Like I’m gonna call my dad and say Kankri needs more tests done.

“Uh, no? My dad would kick my ass. You know how families are.”

“What?” says Kankri, incredulously. He even raises his eyebrows, and uses this opportunity to move closer, so we’re nearly shoulder to shoulder. Our footsteps sync up, and we watch a gopher dart across the road. I don't like it. Not the gopher, obviously, but this seems to be veering into uncomfortable territory.

“I dunno,” I answer. “Don’t get the wrong idea. My dad’s a great dad, he raised both my brother and me, but…”

“But what?” says Kankri. I glance over at him. The skin next to his nose is wrinkled up, and his pale eyebrows pushed down low to his eyes.

“He’s never hit me or anything,” I answer, and even to me, it sounds like an excuse.

“I never implied he did,” says Kankri mildly. I hesitate, momentarily, watching a raven swoop down on the road in front of us, hop a few steps, and then fly off again.

“Look, Kankri, I didn’t come out here to spill my guts to you. We just need to save the universe and that’s it," I say.

“Then phone your dad,” Kankri says, daring me. “I’ve still got a little bit of battery left.”

I don’t answer right away. I didn’t come out here for a therapy session. I didn’t come out here to owe Kankri anything other than this stupid quest. This whole thing feels like a bad transposition. Sure, the notes are right, but the key is wrong. 

“He can just be, a little…harsh,” I say, and I immediately regret it. Like maybe, just by talking badly about him in some degree without a compliment to soothe it, I’ll summon my dad. Kankri makes a noise of acknowledgement, and then tentatively asks, “Was it really bad?”

“It was the worst.”

The readiness I answered with surprises me. It’s like I was waiting for someone to ask, with the answer waiting like a trap. But it is true.

“My mom’s gone. She ran away,” I say, which is the truth, but now it just makes the whole thing sound different. I’m not sure why my mom left. Why do dads leave? Is it the same reasons moms do?

Kankri’s eyes are as red and round as a pre-teen vampire’s. “Cronus,” he breathes, turning to walk backwards while still keeping pace. “I didn’t know you came from a broken home.”

That makes me laugh a little bit. “Kankri, ew. What is this, the nineties? Who even says that?”

“It’s the proper term. I read it online,” says Kankri huffily, adjusting the brim of his Dodger's cap.

“Oh, thank God. Bountiful source of information, that internet.”

“You’re intolerable,” says Kankri, turning back around.

“Pssh. Whatever. _Broken Home.”_

Kankri shakes his head, teeth gritting together, although I think it’s in effort to keep from smiling instead of just all-consuming rage. “With me, it’s just my mom and my half-brother and my stepdad. My mom and dad got divorced when I was nine,” he says, reaching up to adjust his baseball cap again. His hair fluffs around it, bristling with displeasure at being detained. “I don’t see my dad a lot. He’s a legal ethics attorney and he lives out in British Columbia with his girlfriend,” continues Kankri. He doesn’t seem resentful about this, just mostly wistful. Like his dad is doing the right thing. Ugh, there’s a path I don’t want to think about in a hurry. There’s finally a break in the trees, and we get an overlooking view of the valley below us, including the faint outline of a grey streak.

“What’s that?” asks Kankri, squinting through the fog. “Is that a town?”

“Chief,” I say, as a small square of lights flickers on one side of the smudge. “I think that’s a town.”

“Thank goodness,” says Kankri, grinning appreciatively. “I was concerned about being involved in a traffic collision.”

“Or worse,” I say, wiggling my fingers. “Even more fucking bonding.”

Kankri makes a dismissive noise, still looking at the smudge. "The closest path is down the mountain,” he says, like it's obvious that we, too, are plunging down the mountain like a couple of boulders.

“Great, more walking. Also, I’m still mad at you for getting us fucking stranded,” I say, bending down to double-knot my shoes.

“Asshole,” mutters Kankri, stomping off the path and ducking under a low-hanging pine tree branch. I follow after him, looking up at the smudge before I head into the trees.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First week of November is midterm week for me, so I thought I'd put the chapter up now. As always, thanks for reading, and if you've decided that you need more of my writing in your life (for whatever reason), please check out my other story, Cosmic Jukebox, as it needs the reviews and I need the feedback.


	26. Unlockable Lore #2: Dave Strider

[Excerpt from lore.com, your place for all things pop-culture conspiracy]

Dave Strider was born in Eridanus County, Texas. Little is known of his early life, aside from being raised by an older brother, due to his refusal to speak about it.

Strider’s rise to fame due to a deal with a demon [citation needed] began at the age of thirteen, Deejaying for multiple parties in the area of Houston, sometimes up to four in a night.

“I didn’t really go to school. I had shit to do,” said Strider in an interview with _People Magazine_. Despite his lack of education, Dave Strider graduated from  Yale University with a degree in business, and returned three years later to give his now infamous speech “I have no fucking clue how I graduated,” in which he claimed he never went to class, spent time skateboarding around campus, and fell asleep in lecture “On the regular.”

Perhaps due to his unorthodox, turbulent upbringing, Dave Strider has become a pop-culture icon, now the face for Holla Mansion and it’s yearly spring-break party Baccaphernalia.

He is most known for his monotone voice and sarcastic rambling comments [Citation needed].

Strider is also the pioneer of his own website content.com and the subsequent cartoon series Content, known for disconcerting animation and disjointed nature, starring characters sweet bro and hella jeff, as well as geromy.

A Content Anime is currently in the works, to which Dave Strider has allegedly claimed “That’s fucking hilarious.”

Dave Strider has been ex-communicated from the bisexual community, for repeatedly making outrageous claims that bisexuals are made of cooked spaghetti [citation needed], can turn invisible at will [citation needed], and that bisexuals are made of lightning-struck trees, rising only when someone plays “Bye Bye Bye” by the Backstreet Boys. [Citation needed]

Despite being ex-communicated, Strider still claims his sexuality as Bisexual/Pansexual. His application to join the Pansexual Pantheon [Citation needed] is still pending.

See also: Goop Soda

See also: Trickster God

This page needs citations. Do you want to edit?

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Edit this page?


	27. We find an abandoned civilization, and go to McDonald's

The temperature’s rapidly dropped, and the skin of my arms feel as slick and cold as the skin of a seal. I rub my hands over them awkwardly, hoping the uncoordination of my hands is due to being cold, and not just nerve decay.

“Cronus!” says Kankri, his voice coming through the trees ahead of me. “We’re here!”

“Seriously?” I ask, because that seemed way too easy. And yet, as I blunder out of the trees, we’re facing down a sign the size of a pirate ship welcoming us to Speckter Parc, Oregon. “Damn,” I say, trying to catch my breath. “We really made it.”

Speckter Parc seems to be a tourist trap, or maybe everyone in Oregon is just really tacky and into fudge. Everywhere you look, there are log cabins not made of actual logs, enormous ceramic bears made to look like they were carved out of trees, and endless rounds of hotels. The whole place has the kitschy feeling of Banff, but with less snow.

“Well,” I say, looking around at the hotels. “At least we don’t have to sleep outside.”

Kankri clicks his tongue at a window display of Native American trinkets in a window. “I cannot believe anyone would be allowed to completely desecrate a culture like that,” he says, folding his arms and turning away. I stretch my arms above my head, and every muscle in my body aches. “Whatever, lets just go find something to eat. Man does not live on Clodhoppers alone.”

We head down Main Street, passing by huge three-story cabins with satellite dishes and empty swimming pools with tarps pulled over them like graves. Man, if you have enough money, just go buy your own police force and be done with it. These things are just tacky. I wonder what Porrim would be saying if she were here. Would she be pointing out the driftwood statues and clicking her tongue? Would she take it all in and not say anything? Would she crack jokes?

“Sure is quiet,” Kankri mumbles. It’s true. Not a single car has passed by us, and our footsteps echo down the street like distant music from house parties. We haven’t passed a single person, either. It’s like the apocalypse has already hit Speckter Parc, and the idea that the Lord of Time beat us here makes me wanna sit down. Maybe he’ll just jump out of a dumpster like Oscar the Grouch. That image makes me smile, but it's a weak one. I never, ever want to see that guy again. And even then, it'll be too soon.

“Must just be the off-season,” I respond. Kankri doesn’t respond, but just looks around warily. It’s so quiet that when we pass under a blinking stoplight, we can hear the click of the mechanism inside it.

“Cronus,” says Kankri, stepping a little closer. “Where is everyone?”

My right calf momentarily twitches, like it’s seconding the motion.

“It’s the off season,” I insist, and then notice the one thing that’ll save us. “Kankri, look! McDonalds!”

We push the door open, and head inside, and surprise surprise, it’s completely abandoned. At least it’s warmer than outside. “Fuck,” I mutter. “Where is everyone?”

Meanwhile, Kankri’s jumped the counter, and headed to the back. “Kankri!” I call, not wanting to go in and get eaten by the vampires that have inevitably taken over the town. “Relax. I worked a summer at Dairy Queen,” says Kankri, firing up one of the grills. The power and electricity seems to be working, and Kankri retreats further to one of the freezers.

“Cronus, can you boost this open for me? I wouldn’t want it to shut and thus asphyxiate me.”

I boost myself onto the counter, and swing my legs over, like a little kid at a public swimming pool. I tentatively trod to the freezer, where Kankri has taken out two baskets of french fries. “What do you want? I mean, we will leave money on the counter, of course,” says Kankri, rooting deeper through cardboard boxes. It strikes me how hungry I am.

“Like the Buddhists say, chief. Make me one with everything.”

“Cronus!” yelps Kankri, standing up so abruptly he hits his head on a wire shelf. “That is disrespectful! And offensive! Do you even know how much suffering has occurred in Tibet as a result of—“ I ignore him, reaching over him for another packet of fries, and then hip check the freezer door shut, pressing my back into it. There’s a moment of quiet, save for the hum of the freezer. I can feel Kankri hammering his fists into the inside of the door and I pop it open again, pressing the safety latch with my foot.

“Hey, look, I was—“

And Kankri wallops me in the face. It’s not quite a punch, and it’s not really a slap, either, but there’s knuckles. I’m pretty sure he just swung his arm at me and whatever landed was just sheer luck. I did sort of deserve it, though. Maybe I’m still pissy about the seizure, which I am pretty sure I have every right to be. Kankri’s standing in the blocked-up freezer, dwarfed by towers of boxes, air whistling in and out of his nose, and then I say, “I’m sorry,” and I mean it.

“Good,” he says, turning to pull a bunch of frozen hamburgers out of another cardboard box. He wipes his eyes on the shoulder of his sweater.

“That was bad, that was really fucked, sorry Kankri.”

Kankri shakes his head, tight-lipped, and then relaxes. “Don’t ever do stuff like that, okay?” he says, giving me a stern look over his shoulder. I nod, picking up the fries and stuff and heading to the deep frier. I figure out how to switch it on, and I throw everything into one of the baskets and submerge it. The freezer sucks closed, and I can hear Kankri pause.

“Are you just deep frying _everything?”_

After eating, we borrow a couple jackets from an unlocked sporting goods store. I wanted to take a tent, too, but Kankri flips out about the minor theft and won’t let me.

“Hey, hold up,” I say, pulling my new jacket around me. It’s dark purple, and Kankri thought it looked very nice on me. “Let’s go up to the houses.”

“Or,” says Kankri nervously, glancing up to the setting sun. “We find somewhere to stay for tonight, and come back tomorrow.”

“Aw, is the empty town scaring you?” I simper. I mean, the empty town is creeping me out too, but Hell if I’m not going to needle Kankri a little bit.

Kankri, predictably immediately bristles. “Of course not!” he says. “That’s ridiculous!” I notice we’re heading back up a hill, towards a fancy-looking hotel with tons of pokey architectural details.

“You know,” I say, hip-checking Kankri while we’re walking. “If you venture out after dark, an escaped mental patient with a hook for a hand will give you a coupon book.”

“That is ableistic. Do not make fun of mental illness, it’s a serious issue.”

“You’re just mad because you don’t have a coupon book,” I say. Rufioh’s Ibanez doesn’t cut into my back nearly as much, but with it being in my backpack I don’t even want to think about the strings. I make a mental note to loosen them before I go to sleep.

“You know what I can’t stand?” says Kankri, glaring up at me. “I hate that whenever I try to raise a valid point, you’re constantly undermining me.”

“I hate that you’re always trying to pick a fight,” I add.

“Am not.” 

We’ve reached the top of the driveway, inlaid with cobblestones the size of Kankri’s feet. There’s a fancy kidney-shaped loop of drive that goes around a dry fountain, and the whole building looks stately. Way too expensive for us, anyway.

“You totally are, all the time,” I point out to Kankri. “It’s always something with you.” Kankri falls silent, finally out of rebukes, thank God. It's nice to argue, though, better than actually talking. Bickering keeps us on even ground. I head away from him and up the steps to the hotel, holding the door open for Kankri. “Chief, I’m being a real nice guy, holding the door open. Get up the stairs,” I say, pretending to struggle under the weight of the transparent door. Kankri stomps up the steps, muttering about how not funny I am and I pull the door shut behind us. 


	28. We make ourselves comfortable

The next ten minutes consist of me tear-assing all over the hotel as fast as my shaky nerves will let me. Something about hotel carpets just make me wanna run on them. Must be the pattern. The first floor reveals nothing too out of the ordinary aside from a bunch of couches swamped with sheets to hide them from dust and sunlight, making them look like squat-legged ghosts. Nothing upstairs, either, and most of the rooms are locked.

“Hey, Kankri!” I call down, leaning heavily on the ornate railing that runs around the second floor like a playpen for rich people. “You find any room keys?” Kankri’s reply comes back immediately, bouncing against the vaulted ceiling.

“No, but I got the fireplace open!”

There's a slushy trail of melting footprints across the carpet downstairs, bifurcating the lobby. Kankri’s piled up pre-chopped logs in front of a marble fireplace that sits as sedate as a hippopotamus in the middle of everything. “They may have stuff in the kitchen,” says Kankri loudly. “Soup stock, perhaps.” I nod, and head back to the main staircase. It’s one of those double-wide ones fit for fairytale weddings, and I jump the middle bannister to slide into the lobby. Of course, this being me, I fuck up the jump, trip, and smack into the stair on the other side.

“You alright?” Kankri calls. “I heard a noise.”

I groan, my pain absorbed by the luxurious carpet.

“Did you fall over? Are you okay, Cronus?”

“M’Fiiiiiiiine.”

I think I have carpet burn on my face. I slowly disentangle and rub a hand over the sore spot. I’m a good person, I don’t deserve this.

“Cronus? There’s showers and laundry machines downstairs in the basement, if you need them,” says Kankri, sounding miles away from me. “You see any matches?”

Oh, God, the shower. I can finally smell like soap instead of unwashed boy. Hallelujah, the Lord be good. The water may be tepid, bordering on cold, and there’s a soap dispenser that dispenses the kind of red dye number five soap that they kept in the bathroom at school, but it is the best shower of my entire life. Running my hands through my hair one last time, I manage to swat-punch-knock the hotel shower’s dials off, and reach out for a towel. They come wrapped in plastic wrap, for sanitation, I guess and I jab my fingers into it, clawing through the towel bag like a raptor. The towel inside feels like absolutely nothing. I can feel the weight of it, and I raise it to my face. It smells like strawberries and my eyes slip shut.

“Hey, buster,” says Jane, rubbing a hand on my arm. I don’t feel it. “You’re awake.” I feel like I only exist to breathe. Not so much despairing as much as her words just not carrying meaning for me. Hospital lights. There’s someone in the corner of the room, I recognize him, he looks so familiar.

And then I come back, the towel definitely having texture and I’m halfway through drying my hair. I freeze up, making sure I wasn’t spontaneously beamed to an alternate universe. Same floor. I’m still me. Was that another seizure? Good job, brain. Never were any use, hole-filled or solid. There’s still the sense of panic that comes with it, that sickening stomach drop, and I lean up against the wall, take a few deep breaths. On the floor, my E-ticket’s scrunched up with all my dirty clothes. There’s a solid white stripe at the top of it where the green’s faded out halfway through Magic Kingdom. I know Porrim said it wouldn’t last forever, and I don’t want to only be in the middle of nowhere when it finally stops working. I dry off and wrap myself up in the towel and head out to wash my clothes.

Later that night, Kankri and I set up fire and raft together a couple couch cushions off the couches to set up a mattress. There’s emergency blankets under the front desk, and we curl up in a new state of clean in the darkened lobby. While I was showering, Kankri raided the kitchen, coming back out with a feast composed of a jar of olives, cans of soup, and a box of crackers. “There was pancake mix too,” says Kankri. “But that can wait until tomorrow morning.”

“Good plan,” I say, pulling up a bowl of soup for myself. I drink straight from the bowl because we’ve reached this part in our relationship. Kankri makes a noise of disgust. “Thanks for dinner,” I said. “And lunch, too, I guess.” Kankri nods with a sense of finality. “Not a problem. I do seem to be pulling a lot of the weight around here,” he says with just a smidgen of self-satisfaction, reaching for a handful of silverware left on the floor next to the fireplace.

“You didn’t have to come out here,” I snap, and then immediately regret it when the silence between us falls sudden and heavy. “So, uh,” I clear my throat. “Why did you?”

Kankri shrugs and goes back to eating. Silence grows again, but I wait. He sways with indecision before he finally finds the words.

“It’s not as if I had the quest in the first place,” he says, hesitantly, picking over his words. “Well, it kind of is. I am responsible for the fate of the world as much as you are, right?”

The fire pops, logs settling and glowing.

“Do you remember, back in the hospital?” Kankri says, staring down into his soup like he’s trying to divine the answer.

“My memory doesn’t go that far back. I’m like a goldfish, Kankri,” I say, taking another swallow of soup. I think it’s supposed to be tomato, but I can’t tell. And I want to hear this. Because honestly, Kankri’s been bitching me out since we lost the bus. I want to know why the Hell he’s still here because he’s obviously not having a good time.

“You said…you asked if this was what I wanted my life to be like. It’s…it’s sort of a long story. But my whole life, I’ve been. I feel coddled. I feel safe. I hate it, Cronus,” says Kankri quietly. He doesn’t make eye contact, and his fingers move slowly against the edge of his bowl. Despite how quiet and controlled he sounds, there’s something in his words that seethe. And maybe this is the right space for it. Maybe in the dark of an abandoned hotel five hundred years away from either of our lives, maybe it’s okay here.

“I’d give anything for that,” I tell him, trying to keep my voice quiet. It sounds small in the space of the lobby.

“Maybe you would. I couldn’t abide it.”

“Kankri?”

“What?” he says, his eyes finally flicking up to meet mine. He’s not mad. He wants to hear what I have to say. That’s something new, and it makes my chest swell. “You’re prime sidekick material. Might not be your quest, but I couldn’t ask for anyone better,” I say, because it’s true. Kankri lets out a _tssssh_ of disappointment and shakes his head. A comfortable silence falls again, broken only by me sucking down soup and Kankri’s spoon clanking against the bottom of the bowl.

“…I also cannot stand the Brooklyn Dodgers,” says Kankri conversationally and out of nowhere. That gets to me, and I choke on my dinner from laughing. The offending baseball cap is sitting to the side, perched on top of Kankri’s backpack.

“Let it all out, Kankri,” I say, wiping one arm across my mouth, trying to get my breathing back under control.

Even later, after food, after talking, the fire’s died down and Kankri’s asleep on one side of the mattress raft and I’m wide awake, staring at the ceiling. Because really, this entire trip is a mess. But I feel really good about all of it as of right now. I guess I’m just happy. I fold my arms above my head. I hope Porrim’s watching me. Is she thinking about me? What’s she doing right now? Does she miss me? I’m pining and pathetic. Cronus in love. Cronus in thirst. I groan and roll over, trying to get to sleep on my stomach. I’ve been sleeping in my clothes a lot. It’s weird what the end of the world does to a guy.

There’s a faint slide-whistle of a text message being sent off in the far corner of the lobby. I raise up on my forearms, looking over at Kankri, a silhouette of lumps next to the dying fire. “Hey, chief?” I ask, reaching over to shake him awake. He groans and tunnels deeper, pulling his emergency blankets closer around him.

“Kankri, I think you got a text.”

“Cronus, come on. My phone’s dead.”

I open my mouth to respond and then I hear a faint tap of shoes against the floor. “You hear that?” I ask, quietly.

“I’m asleep, Cronus,” says Kankri, irritated.

I squint at the darkness around us. I don’t see anyone. “Is anyone there?” I call, pulling the blankets up around my shoulders. There’s no answer, so I try again. “Hell-ooo? Ollie ollie oxen free?”

There’s a beat of silence, and then a shout of, “You heard! Jump ‘em!”

Five people pour out of the darkness, taking flying leaps onto both of us. Kankri shrieks, and I think I do too. I turn over, managing to wrench off a smaller person. I can't manage to see a lot of them, because what the fuck, it's dark and they're wearing dark clothes with bike helmets and bandanas pulled over their faces. Kankri’s got two people on him already, and he flails his arms and pedals his feet, trying to drive an elbow into a face made anonymous by motorcycle helmet. A pair of hands fasten around my wrists, pulling me off the mattress raft and onto the cold floor of the lobby. I try to shake them off but my nerves flail into vengeful wakefulness. Pain wracks my arms, turning me useless and jelly-limbed. “Cronus!” yelps Kankri from behind me. “Help me!” “I’m trying!” I grit back, trying to make my body as heavy as possible. I look over my shoulder to see Kankri’s pinned on his stomach, a figure in a green bike helmet kneeling on his arms to keep him down. “Get the big guy up up!” one of the people around me says, and I’m hauled up onto my knees.

“Think fast!”

I don’t think fast enough, and the boot connects solidly in between my eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there's February! Have Cronus getting a boot to the face, because never ever trust an empty town. Again, thanks so much for all the comments and kudos, because wow.


	29. I Battle a Horde of Cultists. Here's Wonderwall.

I'm standing on a beach. I can feel the faint crush of sand underneath my shoes, and the ocean spreads out before me, grey and kicking into pompadours where the waves pull at it. The sky above me is a lighter grey, the colour of dryer lint. I don't know how I got here, maybe that kick was harder than I thought. The last place I was...that was the hotel. I shift my feet from side to side, burrowing my feet deeper into the sand. It's faintly cold, filtering in between the seams of my shoes and into my socks. "Shit," I mutter, bending down to untie my shoes. Suddenly, my balance swerves, swinging from side to side and I'm flat on my back grasping towards a dark ceiling. I open and close my hands a few times experimentally. Nope, I was definitely tripping out there. Great. I let my arms fall back to the ground next to me and try to think things through. Let’s see. Kidnapped, kicked in the face, and I’m in somewhere dark. I feel like a PSA against bad teenage behaviour and that makes me laugh. The back of my head throbs with it, feeling slightly overinflated to the point of splitting. 

“Hey, Kankri, I just had something crazy,” I say, trying to roll over, shaking my head slightly to clear it. There’s no response, just the faint crunch of floor grit. I reach forward, beginning to crawl. “Kankri?” I ask, because he could easily just be unconscious too. What if he is? What’ll I do if that happens? I’m supposed to turn him on his side, right? Isn’t what they said in health class, or was that for alcohol poisoning? Great, now I wish I paid attention.

My hands sweep back and forth across the floor, rubbing against more dirt. “Kankri? Chief?” I call again, and my hands bump into a plastic box that wobbles back and forth against the dirty ground. I grope around it, and I feel latches. Is this a trombone case? Why the Hell is there a trombone here? Kankri’s not in here with me at all. I’m all alone.  
“Porrim?” I try. Might as well try. “Porrim, Porrim, c’mon, answer,” I mutter, hoping that maybe I can summon her if I wish hard enough. _When_ _you_ _wish_ _upon_ _a_ _star…_  
There’s a sudden scraping against the door, and the unmistakable noise of a key turning in a lock. Part of my brain screams at me to attack, to kick the door out and make a run for it, but the rest of my brain immediately clamps down. No! Obey! Shut up and stand there, Cronus! The door swings open, and for the first time, I get a glimpse at whoever caught me and Kankri.  
“Oh, hold on,” she says, her voice high-pitched and coming from just behind her teeth. _Oh, he-old on._  Fluorescent lights buzz and flicker to life, illuminating her fully. She’s tiny, like in a way that reminds me of a cartoon princess, or a teacup-sized fairy. A wild mane of black hair is jammed under a blue wool hat that’s been pulled down too low, almost to her eyes, and the top seams of the hat bulge like cat ears in an effort to contain the floof, most of which flips around her face anyway.  
“Beholden, prisoner!” she squeaks. “Your trial awaits!”  
_Be-hyolden, purrisoner! Yeeor turrial ee-waits!_

This is accompanied by a flailing gesticulation of arms, the long olive-green sleeves of her coat flapping like the wings of a bird. Beneath her enormous Japanese-animation eyes, her upper lip is pulled into a distinct cleft. Maybe that’s what’s affecting her speech. I dunno, and I’m not going to ask.  
“What’m I on trial for? I’m a good guy, look, I’ll even keep my hands where you can hold them,” I say, holding my wrists out to her. I’m even on my knees. This is perfect, who could resist this?  
“Nice try, purr-iminal, but the Justice most Dangerous requests your presence on the double!” she says, grabbing my wrists and yanking me forward that my shoulders pop, no joke. She’s so tiny, where does all that strength come from? I get unsteadily to my feet, my legs complaining after being kept up. The girl hip-checks the closet doors closed. We’re in a hallway lined with more cabinets, and I immediately recognize the mildew-and-root-beer smell. 

“Hey, baby, are we in a high school band room by any chance?”  
“The Grand Lion, Kuh-ween of Beasts, does not have to answer your questions!” 

Well, there goes that line of questioning. I could still make a run for it. There’s no way in Hell manic pixie dream girl over here would be able to catch me before I managed to find a way out. I mean, I’d be leaving Kankri behind, but what’s Kankri done for me lately? Wait, he’s been doing everything, I can’t leave him behind, I don’t know how to cook. I’m pretty sure I would die of starvation if I ran, so I guess I got to stick it out.  
The Grand Tiger/Queen of Beasts grabs onto my wrists and twists them effortlessly behind my back, manoeuvring me easily down a hallway crowded with instrument cupboards, like woodwind mausoleums. “Take it easy, huh?” I tell her, trying to look over my shoulder at her. She’s so small, but her nails dig in something fierce.  
“Yee-oo take it easy, tress-pur-ass-er!” she retorts. “Also turn here.”

‘Turning here’ means that I get marched up another set of stairs and then down another hallway. The darkness gets more and more oppressive the further I walk. I get the feeling she’s leading me in circles, advanced interrogation techniques at work. Even with the lights out and the circles, I can still tell I’m in a high school. There’s no mistaking the faint reek of pot smoke that mixes with fresh paint and fried food. Convenient. I mean, I knew high school was gonna kill me but I didn’t think it’d be literally.  
My captor steps on the back of my heels, pulling me to a stop. We’re deep in the second floor, but I can feel a slight breeze to my right.

“In you go!” she says cheerfully. In I go where? I can’t see a damn thing.  
“I can’t see a damn thing,” I tell her.  
“Hmm. Here, just, duck,” she says, one hand going to the back of my head and pushing me down. It feels less kinky-in-the-dark than more Cop-pushing-my-head-to-the-pavement-to-avoid-brain-splatter. I obligingly bend my knees, until the top of my head bumps against a plastic ridge. It feels like a slide from a playground. She lets go of my wrists and I grope forwards, feeling sliding seams in the tube. It drops off pretty steeply, going from slide to pit of death in a heartbeat.  
“What is this?” I ask, leaning a little bit further forward. On the other side, my feet get grabbed, and I think maybe she’s going to pull me back.  
“Justice!” she shouts gleefully, folding me easily into the tube and kicking me down with her feet.

The heartbeat between slide and pit of death is without a doubt the shortest and longest I’ve ever felt. I don’t even have time to scream between plummeting and landing. Enough so that when I land in a big room full of chanting teens on a giant nasty-smelling gymnastics mattress, I lie there in shock. Like maybe somehow I died again, and have just descended to a different realm of bullshit. 

“Quiet down, guys!” rings out over the hullaballoo. The chatter bubbles down, and I cautiously, cautiously unpeel myself from the thick blue mat. I’ve definitely landed in a high school, and, even better, a high school gym. The last time I saw one of these was at that stupid pep rally to commemorate my death, and I’m in no hurry to go through that again. The bright-white mushrooms of this gymnasium’s lighting casts down in cones, leaving bright circles of light in random intervals near the exits and around the bleachers, which are packed with kids my age, kids with filthy matted hair and torn-up clothing. Speckter Parc is starting to feel less and less friendly with every new turn of events. I glance around, but I can’t see Kankri anywhere. I’m going to have to fight my way out of this Thunderdome and find him, and I’ll need to do it soon.  
  
“The court is now in session!” carries above the crowd, who shuffle and settle in on the plastic bench seats. I can barely make out a pile of gym equipment underneath the basketball hoop on the other side. I carefully sit up and listen.  
“Would anyone care to defend the accused?” asks a person sitting on the makeshift mountain, sounding excited, like I’m at some kind of orientation. Titters and giggles foam up from the packed sides, making me feel like shrinking into myself.

“That’s okay. Don’t worry, most of this is just for old time’s sake,” whoever’s on top of the pile reassures, definitely a she, and I can make out a wild snarl of curly hair on top of the gym equipment.  
“Trespasser!” she says brightly. “You’re charged with breaking and entering, blatant disrespect, and theft. So, um?”  
There’s a noise as every eye in the gym turns to look at me.  
“Uhhh….” I manage, my voice carrying. Because, well, I mean, that’s technically true, but we didn’t know it was cult property.  
“Seriously?” I hear someone in the stands whisper, and that gives me my voice back.  
“What I mean to say, is—“  
And I’m interrupted by a hollow-sounding yell, and Kankri plummets to the mattress next to me. The force of it nearly catapults me up to my feet, like some bizarre song-and-dance routine. There’s a nasty bruise on Kankri’s jaw, already darkening to a deep dark plum. Kankri emits a wheeze, staring up at the ceiling unblinkingly. Personally, I’m thrilled to see him, but right now, I don’t think he’s in any state to do anything. I’ll let him get his breath back so he can yell the house down.

“Anyway,” I say, trying again. “What I mean to say, uh, my liege, is that me and my buddy thought this place was empty. Now, if we could get our stuff back, we would be out of your hair no problem,” I say, getting off the mattress to head across the floor.  
Top of the heap girl thinks it over. I glance around, not wanting to look away from anyone for too long in case they pour out and eat me. There’s mutters and whispers from all around me, and I hold my hands out, like hey, c’mon, guys? We’re all friends here.

“Okay, cool, no problem,” she says, her hair swaying as she shakes her head. “It’s not like you knew, so we could probably just-“  
“No way!” shouts someone in the crowd. “Trial by combat!”  
The entire crowd breaks into a low _oooooh,_  and my stomach sinks. By the pricking of my thumbs, something awful this way comes. I shrink down a little smaller, slouching slightly, trying to get all these eyes off me so I can think. Trial by combat? Sure, I’m a big guy, but I’m pretty sure whatever these guys throw at me is going to be bigger, meaner, and have more teeth.

“Oh, that’s exciting!” says the girl from the top of the heap, standing up and beginning to make her perilous way down. “We’re going to do that, just give me a minute-“  
“I just want to get my friend, my stuff, and go. Is that okay?” I ask, and a cramp runs down my right arm from the shoulder to the wrist, like a premonition. I grab onto it with my left, and glance around the room. Cue chorus of bitching from the stands at my idea.  
“Cronus?” asks Kankri from behind me, sounding rightfully worried. I can hear him sitting up and shuffling with agitation. “What’s going on?”  
  
“Oh, it’s okay! You’re definitely leaving, my dude,” says the person who has finally descended from the gym equipment throne. She looks dangerous, and not in a fun way. Her hair is just as crazy up close, with different strands doing whatever they want, some curling into ringlets, others near her face lying nearly flat, and the rest a rat’s nest of spit-curls and cowlicks. She’s got two pools of highlighter-pink eyeshadow and thick dark eyeliner smudged around either eye, and she’s layered in band t-shirts and flannel and denim, like one day she’ll grow into a grunge butterfly. If Porrim saw her, she might actually combust.  
“The only question is, are you leaving alone, or are we running you out?” she asks, earning a noise of approval from the crowd. I catch the shine of braces on her teeth, and she leans closer to me.  
“It’s okay, I’m just doing this for the crowd,” she whispers, sounding conspiratorial.  
“Oh, well, thanks.”  
“No problem. If you do lose, it’s cool. We’ll kill you so fast you’ll hardly feel it.”

She bounces away from me as every system in my body freezes with fear. _Mayday, Cronus Ampora, Mayday!_  I don’t think she was kidding. Kankri rustles off the mattress, coming over to stand next to me.  
“Cronus, what did she say?” he asks, pulling at my shirt like a little kid and groaning with frustration when I don’t respond. My mouth feels totally dry, and I run my tongue over my lower lip. 

“Well, how about this?” she says, raising her voice and gesturing to the whole assembly. “Trial by combat! New guy here,” she pauses, gestures to me with both hands like a magician. “New guy gets to showcase his best talent, and if it’s good, he can stay!”  
“What if he thuckth?” says a lisping person slouching in the front row.  
“If he sucks,” she answers, breaking into a winning smile. “We’ll give him the good old fashioned Speckter Runaround!”  
The gym roars approval, and the girl shrugs, looking at me with a what-can-you-do expression. Kankri flinches and takes a step away from me. “You got any kind of talent?” she asks me, tilting her head to one side.  
“What the fuck?” I answer, looking around at the Thunderdome. “You’re going to kill us?” Next to me, Kankri gives a startled yelp.   
“You got a talent or you gonna default?” she says, swaying back and forth from foot to foot.  
Kankri’s standing still and silent, eyes bulging. I have to go through with this. I have to try. I nod, to show this smiling psychopath I’m not worried. My guts are twisting uneasily. Why didn’t I run when I had the chance?  
“I can do music,” I answer.  
  
Mere moments later, an acoustic guitar’s rustled up along with some sheet music and a guitar pick seasoned with bite marks. Great. I’m going to be put on death trial and I’m only going to be able to play Wonderwall. Kankri’s helping me sort through all these random papers, hands shaking as he separates them page by page.

“Can you play that?” he asks nervously, spreading sheet music out on the mattress and pointing to a random sheet.  
“Course I can,” I answer, reaching for it. I mean, I can’t play a lot, so hopefully my execution will be quick. I go through the sheet music, kneeling to spread it out on the floor before Leader Girl makes the choice for me.  
“I mean,” says Kankri. “It’s Cairo Overcoat Experience. Everyone knows it.”  
“That’s the plan, man.”  
“So if you mess up, everyone will know.”  
“Oh, that’s real reassuring.”

“Cronus! Be serious!” he says, leaning forwards with his hands on his knees, his breath coming out in quick wheezes. "These people, come on, they will  _rip us apart_ _and eat our eyes!_ Like savages!" he says, grabbing onto the hollows of his eyes with his fingers and stretching them out like an owl. I mean, I don't think he's wrong. I give the room an uneasy glance, then look down to the music.

The key signature alone makes me flinch. But hey, it’s a classic sad song. Of course the cult leader wants to hear a chart-topper about love and abandonment. I set back up on the gymnastics mattress, spreading the sheet music out. Kankri shifts over for me, the back of his hand pressed to his mouth. If he throws up, we are done. We are dead. I absentmindedly pick out a couple notes, enough to tell I’m out of tune. Well, fuck, not a lot I can do about that now. Best to not worry about the clammy palms and my own thundering heart rate, either. A warning cramp bites down in the inside of my right arm.  
“Whenever you’re ready!” says the leader, giving me a big thumbs-up. The rest of the crowd settles down again, and I start into it. Janey by Cairo Overcoat Experience. It’s easy, it’s two key changes with an easy time signature. It’s easy, it’s easy, just don’t freak out, don’t freak out, Cronus. Kids in the gym start singing along after I get past the intro, because why not? We all grew up listening to this, anyway.  
  
_Janey, you made up your life/ and you walked out the door/Folded your ambition up, hid it in a paper cup/Oh, but I’m so un/sure. Lah-dah-dee-dah-dah-die._  
_Where was I supposed to go?/Back to that house that don’t feel like home._  
_Oh/no._  
_Never any room to grow._

I miss a chord, and my stomach heaves. I have to keep going, it’s fine, it’s okay. I keep playing, I keep going, because at this point, Janey by COE is going to save my ass or it’s going to get me killed. Kankri turns a page for me, nodding along hesitantly and giving me a way-too-wide smile.

_So I’m vexed I’m depressed I’m a mess/never any steps toward progress_  
_Oh/no._  
_There’s no room in my home._

Psychopaths in the audience are swaying along, still singing. I see some other kid has raised their phone screen and waving it obnoxiously. I mean, it’s the same stuff written on every bathroom wall in every school, it’s not like I’m doing it right. But, but, my execution might be put off, which is good.  
  
_Janey do you think I’m/wrong?_  
_Would you cut me off to be po/lite?_  
_I’ve never been the type to get tongue-tied/_  
_But never the type been the type to make things right/_  
_we’ll end up in the same place every/time._  
_Just to make it work you’ve had to lose your mind,_  
_I don’t think I’ll come back tonight._  
_Oh/no._  
_Do you hear my voice, do you sing this song,_  
_There are worse things than leaving, than moving along_  
_Janey, do you hate what I cannot control?_

I break off to do the speaking part, and everyone in the crowd sucks in a breath. I’ve got them now, there’s no way I’m dying tonight. “Because you know what, I hate it too,” we all say together, and I hit out the chords before the chorus. Vexed, depressed, I’m a mess, Janey, are you out there feeling the same way? Nobody knows who the song was written for, and the COE’s lead singer Roxy was always sort of cagey about it in interviews. Mentioned something about a friend who went away to med school. I risk a glance up to the cult leader, who’s sitting at the base of the gym equipment looking pensive. So far, not terrible. I think I’ve got this. I can do it. We’ll be fine.  
Suddenly, my hand stutters into a cramp, and I lose my grip on the music, notes sliding off into a death gargle. The pick drops from my hand and clatters across the floor. “No!” I call, trying to keep my voice down. I curl up over it, and the gym breaks into chatter again. I bend low over the stupid guitar, trying to shake and knead the pain out of my hand. The sooner I get my hand into working order, the better, oh, God, they’re going to kill us and it’ll be my fault. Damn it! I didn’t, fuck, it’s okay, I can fix this. My hand kills, spikes of pain radiating from the outside to the inside of the bones.

The crowd starts to get restless, cannibals shifting forwards eagerly. My eyes water, more out of fear of being consumed than actual tears.  
  
“Cronus,” says Kankri quietly.  
“I’m sorry, I know Chief, gimme a second!”  
“Look, Cronus,” says Kankri, going quickly from cajoling into irritated. I glance up, and the assembly’s got their hands up, raised pretty firmly into majority thumbs-up.  
“I did it?” I ask, squeezing my wrist, the pain subsiding slightly.  
“Maybe. They could be voting on whether or not they want to kill us.”  
Leader Girl makes a show of counting up some of the votes before declaring majority. “I think they liked it, good job guys!” she says, settling her hands on her substantial hips. “Looks like you guys can stick around, stay as long as you like. And for the rest of you guys!” she raises her voice, brushing an errant seaweed-section of hair out of her face. “Meeting adjourned!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hate writing song lyrics and yet I need them. I also don't know how guitars work, and I need them too. Cronus and Kankri need to go home and stop making me do things. Anyway, here's Wonderwall/update for March.


	30. I talk stars and stay up all night

As Kankri and I file back out of the gym, cold outdoor air blowing over our arms, I wonder exactly what the Hell Porrim is up to. The question isn’t a rosy one. I mean, defender of the universe and etc. gets into a life-or-death battle, and she doesn’t even show up? What’ll it take to get some support around here? Have things gotten so bad on her end that she couldn’t step in? My stomach still hasn’t got the message that I’m safe and I still feel like I’m going to be sick.

“Where’s our stuff?” asks Kankri blearily. He sounds totally strung out. I don’t think either of us have had a full night’s sleep since we left the hospital. Oh, God, do I miss sleeping. The thought of it nearly makes my knees buckle, or maybe that’s just nerve damage. Kankri claps his hands, trying to get my attention or refocus me. “Cronus, now what? Now what happens?” he asks. I give him a long look, the skin on my neck wrinkling with the force of it. He nods. “No plan. Good. It’s not like having a plan helped us anyway.”

“Look, Kankri, can you just,” I run a hand over my face. “Can you just lay off?” We stand quietly outside the gym for a moment, and then Kankri says, “Actually, I just think it’s funny how you think I should lay off, because-”

I stop listening as Kankri keeps outlining his point. I grab onto my elbows and dig my nails in, and it stuns me a little how long they are. How many days has it been since we left. We had three weeks, didn’t we? How long do we have now? Streetlights start sputtering to life around us, stretching down the block and illuminating the small pocket of suburbia around the school. Some of the kids start zipping off in cars or on bikes, in packs of twos and threes and even fives, because some of them have minivans. It reminds me of the end of school, and me eventually peeling off for the record store or Eridan after pretending to have someone to hang around with. But it feels different now, quieter, with the hubbub boiling off instead of just heading somewhere else. Manic Pixie Dream Girl’s even heading out, slinging one leg and her trench coat over an olive-green scooter, complete with sidecar.

“Heya! You guys should head back inside,” she says, yanking her hat off and replacing it with a white helmet that’s got little plastic cat ears on it. “Aradia’s waiting for you there, big guy.”

“Aradia?” I ask, looking over to Kankri, only to find out that he’s already staring at me with bulging eyes. If I look half as bad as he does, I’m probably dead. “What’s she want with me for?”

She shrugs. “She’s kinda the leader around here now. She’s on top of the gym, and she wants to talk to you alone.”

It’s another long walk to the top of the gym. Kankri won’t leave, flat-out refuses to, and stands guard on the blacktop outside. I can faintly see him craning his head back to look up at the roof but I don’t know if he can actually see anything at all up here, let alone Aradia if she tries to kill me. Aradia’s curled up on an air vent, hair spread out like seaweed at low tide. “Check it out,” she says, pointing upwards. “Stars.”

I look upwards, following her finger, and the sky is speckled with little white dots. A part of me wishes I actually knew shit about constellations just so I can make conversation, but I don’t, so I just say, “Uh huh.”

Aradia braces her hands on her stomach, a pensive, stargazing Ophelia. If it weren’t for the occasional blink, she might actually be dead.

“You wanted to talk to me about something?” I prompt, crossing my arms. It’s cold out, but she’s not shivering at all. Maybe it’s the layers or something. “I’d like to say sorry for the trial by combat, that wasn’t fair. You did well, by the way.”

I nod. “No problem, girl. Can I go? We all cool here?”

“Nope.”

Irritation spikes through me. Damn it, I’m trapped by riddles. Is the following statement true or false?

“Look at the stars, Cronus,” she says, elegantly folding one ankle over the other. “They’ve been shifting. All the constellations are wrong now.”

I look back up, hoping to see a message very clearly spelled out. _GOOD WORK, CHAMP._  I’ve had a long night, universe, this is the least you could do. Allegedly you can look up there and see like, the Iliad or other works of really bad parenting but mostly it's just a bunch of spread of V's and W's.

“The stars have been rearranging for the past nine years. I think it means something but I can’t quite tell,” she says, craning her neck back to give me a look. I don’t know why I’m here, can I just go already? “Yeah, sure, stars, moving, I got it,” I tell her, rubbing my hands over my arms. I’m freezing my everything off up here. There’s no wind protection. Aradia shifts back to staring up at the sky. I think there’s a faint trickle of dawn coming up on my left. Great. Fantastic. I’ve been awake mostly all night.

“There’s some new stories up there now,” she says, bringing her hands up off her stomach to brace behind her head. “And new ones get written out all the time.”

“What did she want?” asks Kankri when I finally return.

“Nothing. Just stupid babble about stars and stories. I wanna go to bed, chief.”

“Seconded,” agrees Kankri, a yawn stretching the word out. Manic Pixie’s still in the parking lot, scooter putt-putt-putting and raring to go. And that’s how we end up camped out in one of the houses on the hill. It turns out the girl’s name is Nepeta, and she’s been “living” out here for the past three years. Turns out a lot of the houses are empty in the off-season, which I was right about, and people like Nepeta live in Speckter during the tourist season selling fast food and t-shirts, but they don’t really have any kind of permanent place to stay, bouncing from basement to basement and sleeping in the backs of restaurants. With all the weird moving-around, it drives them a little wild.

“We’re good people,” Nepeta reassures. “We wouldn’t kill you guys. Just maybe some broken bones.”

The house doesn’t even belong to her. Just some ritzy tourist family with a fondness for beige and minimalism. But they got spotty electricity and heating and a really nice sofa bed. Kankri gets the sofa bed, and I settle in on the floor with a bunch of blankets.

“Well, I’ll see you guys tomorrow, okay? I mean, you can run off, but there’s bears,” says Nepeta, heading up the stairs to the master bedroom, probably. Kankri’s already asleep, head pillowed on one arm. I bet the springs really dig into him.

“You going to bed all by yourself?” I call up after her.

“Yup!”

“…Well, uh, room for one more?”

“Plenty of room outside!”

Well, that seems to settle that. I stay awake for a long time, feeling my body jump and twitch like it’s picking up signals. Maybe I actually am picking up signals from the weird star dust stuff Aradia was talking about, like a cosmic radio antenna. It’s stupid, it’s just fairy tales. There’s nothing up there. Stories my ass. Eventually, I burrito myself in the blankets and stay warm, safe, and very quiet.


	31. The Dynamic Duo split up

We stay in Speckter for a while. I’m not sure how long, because the days and nights seem elastic and we sleep whenever we want, throwing our internal cycles into ellipses. The sky always seems to be the same dreary grey and the streets dead quiet.

“Cronus,” asks Kankri at one point, blinking owlishly as he watches a tire roll down Main Street. “How long have we been here?”   
I didn’t answer, just gave him a shrug. He nodded and seemed to accept that. The place seems to have sapped the bite out of him, and it seems to have healed me to an extent. Who knew that a sleepy town was exactly what I needed? I haven't had a single seizure or muscle twitch. Nothing ever seems to change here, even my nerve damage slows down. It’s like being trapped in a big silent bubble, and I never want to leave.

“Wasn’t the world supposed to end or something?” asks Kankri at some other arbitrary time point while we’re piled deep in with the other Speckter kids. We’re lying flat on our backs watching the clouds boil as they roll past. I tilt my head back very slightly into the dirt to look over at him, feeling the crunch of street sand under my head. I catch an upside-down glimpse of him sitting on a park bench, huddled away from the other Speckter kids.  
“Cronus,” Kankri repeats, glancing around at the huddle. He’s the only one sitting up. The rest of us lie around like lazy cats, but Kankri, nah, he’s sitting up with his feet and arms folded. “Cronus, Earth to Cronus. Quest?”

I groan and run my hands over my face, digging my fingers into the crust in the corner of my eyes. “Kankri, if the world hasn’t ended yet, then it probably won’t by now.”   
“Then what’re we waiting for? Let’s go home.”   
“Chief,” I say, gesticulating with a roll of my wrist to the sky. “Why go home? What’s even there? What do they have there that we don’t have right here?”   
And it’s true. It’s a gospel truth sentiment on my part, because I don’t feel afraid about going home. I don’t feel anything at all, kind of like I’ve been filled with wet sand and TV static. You could throw me under a train or into someone’s van and I could run with the Speckter kids forever and I couldn’t give a fuck.

It seems hardly any days pass at all before Kankri loses patience and tries to straight-up smack me across the face. I blink in surprise, glancing between his face, his twitching jawline to his upraised hand before raising a hand to the side of my face, feeling the nerves prickle faintly.  
“You don’t listen. Did you hear anything I said?” he asks, bringing his fingers forward to snap his fingers in front of my face.  
“What day is it?” I ask, looking down at my hands. They seem so unfamiliar. Kankri’s white fingers dig into my wrists, locking tight around the bones, and he hisses, “We gotta get outta here. Something’s wrong with this whole place. Cronus, I cannot recall my middle name, we need to leave. Soon as possible.” 

I look away from him, looking over the desolate town. I don’t want to go anywhere. I want to stay forever. 

Kankri sighs deeply, and lets go of my wrist. “Okay, Oh-kay,” he says, bracing his hands in front of his mouth, palms together. “If you don’t want to leave, if you want to stay and rot and die, that’s fine. I can finish this myself.” 

“Kankri, it’s—“ 

“Stop saying it’s fine! It’s not fine! Deal with the problem!” says Kankri angrily. “Open your eyes! You saw what happened the night Rufio died! You know what’s after us!”   
“It won’t find us here,” I answer, gesturing around to an area empty of all life. A plastic bag rolls through the street, heading on its own merry adventure. “Why do we have to do anything?” I ask.   
“I’m leaving tomorrow,” says Kankri, shrugging and shaking his head. “Whether you’re with me or not.”   
“I won’t be. Good luck, Chief.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AAARGH I'M STILL TAKING COURSES. This is short, but it's done. Hopefully I can stretch out the next one, depends on how much time I have to write.


	32. We suffer through lots of property damage

I wake up to the sound of running feet and for a moment I think I’m back in the hospital and someone’s getting rushed to emergency. But no, I’m still in Speckter, even after all this time, sleeping in a closed-up sandwich shop that exists down a narrow flight of stairs. The menu blackboards are a filmy grey in the early morning light, and kids are pounding up the stairs to make a break for the surface.

“Hey, c’mon!” someone calls to me. “It’s raining! Finally!”

“I’m moving, I’m moving,” I grumble, sliding off the bench seat. My joints feel stiff and seem reluctant to move, temporarily paralyzed from being stuck in one position for hours at a time. I know it’s not actually lock-up from sleeping in a booth, but it’s probably more nerve degeneration. I should probably go home with Kankri. Oh, shoot, Kankri! He’s leaving today! The thought zaps through me and I lurch up the aisle to the stairs, grabbing onto every available flat surface to make up for the pins and needles. The stairs prove to be a very special challenge, with me gripping hard into the iron railing to the point where I’m sure my skin will reek of it later. I end up slinging my weight from side to side with every step, trying to use my momentum to get up the stairs. Stairs are tough today. Even tougher now that I got my stuff back and keep it tied to me at all times. You never know who the thieves are.

But true to form, it’s pouring rain. The sky has opened up and is washing away the last of the snow in slushy rivulets. Gross teenagers flood the gutters like baby geese, splashing and hollering and having a good time. I even see Aradia, in the middle of the flock, face tilted up to the sky and rain knifing through her caked-on makeup. I can feel the faint tap of rain against my face, and I look up in time to get a drop in the eye.

“Ah, God,” I mutter, looking down and trying to blink it out. I didn’t see Kankri anywhere. Is it possible he already skipped town? Did I miss him? Something hollow settles inside me, and I squint back up, scanning the kids for cheese-white skin or bright red jackets. He’s not here. And right then, the rain stops. Not peters off, or lessens, but stops, like someone switched off a showerhead. Now I don’t know much about weather, but my dad is an English professor, so I do know bad omens. Of course, me being an idiot, I gimp out of the doorway of the Sandwich Shack like the Cronus from the Black Lagoon to stare up at the sky with everyone else.

“Aw, man!” a girl with dreadlocks says. “What just happened?” The sentiment goes around the whole crowd, and then someone near the edge shouts and points up at the sudden thickening of the clouds. The uneven thundercloud-grey pulses and pulls and turns a jade green, lumping together like cancer cells. “Whoa,” gasps a skinny kid next to me, pulling out his phone. “Check it out!”

“Look look look, it’s going red!”

The clouds push out into a concave bowl, shaping over the town like a bubble, red sparks brewing deep in the apex. I feel like my breath’s stopped. I have to find Kankri. “Kankri!” I call, so loudly that a couple kids turn in shock towards me. “Where are you?!”

He was right the entire time. Damn it! I hope he got out now, I hope he managed to get picked up by a bunch of cops, a whole squad of cops, and is being ferried back to Edmonton in a big metal box. I start to push my way out of the crowd but I’m not fast enough. The air heats up rapidly as the first strike comes down and blows the windows out of a gift shop. Kids scramble and scream, trying to push out and away from the site of chaos. “Kankri!" I call again, shoving kids out of my way. Damn it! Did he leave? The lone traffic light starts rattling on its wire, wind swirling up and down the streets.

“Here comes another one!” someone shouts. The second strike cyclones out of the sky, striking down into main street and chewing through the street and boiling the asphalt. Plastered against the chaos is Aradia, who’s standing stock-still and watching it all come down. Slowly, she puts one foot in front of the other, faster and faster until she breaks into a run, booking into the chaos zone.

“Come back!” I call belatedly, but she's already gone. Does she know something? Did she? Maybe she had to get someone out. This is a weird situation, I’m willing to acknowledge that. Things are on fire. It’s pretty apocalyptic out here. I need to find Kankri and get outta here. And then the third strike comes down, throwing me sideways into a parked car.

I open my eyes to a greyish light and what looks like privacy curtains, but on my second glance, it’s a tall fence. The air smells faintly of sea salt and definitely of flowers, ones with long complicated names. And roses. I’m not an idiot, I know what roses are. I run one hand over the fence and bump over the latch to a gate.

Cottage by the sea.

I crack the gate open a little bit to see an overgrown garden, greenery rioting and blooming and weeds straggling through the cobblestone pathways. Weirdly enough, Aradia’s there, eye makeup still a mess and entombed in flannel. “Hey, you,” she says, light glancing faintly off her braces. “You’re here early.” “Guess I am,” I say, feeling a hot gust of wind on my face. Aradia shakes her head and rolls her eyes. “Get lost and come back later.”

There's a series of sharp pains against the side of my face, and I shake my head back and forth until the scene changes. I’m beginning to think there might be something in Speckter’s hellish water supply. I weigh my pros and cons. Cons: In Speckter, fire. Pro: Kankri’s got a vicelike grip on either side of my face, weighing my head painfully to the pavement.

“Chief,” I mumble through an aching jaw. “Leggo.”

“You were seizing. I didn’t know what else to do,” says Kankri, thumbs digging into my forehead. I think he was slapping me. I'm not sure. He slowly loosens his grip and helps me sit up. Speckter’s totally trashed. It looks like the set of a movie, something straight out of Mad Max.

“Can you walk?” Kankri asks, standing up and glancing left and right.

“Think so.”

And I haul up, and I catch a glimpse of someone standing at the end of the smoking street over Kankri’s head. “Fuck off!” I shout towards the Lord of Time, my voice carrying through the wrecked-up street like a kind of war cry. “Don’t be rude,” says Kankri immediately, looking over his shoulder and freezing.

“Don’t be rude?” I repeat as the Lord of Time comes striding down the street. He reaches over his shoulder, unsheathing the rifle and taking aim, feet set apart and steady as trees. “Can he hit us from here?” Kankri asks nervously, glancing down the ruined street. A snowboard shop’s been totally decimated and the road’s blocked off by the resulting rubble, so we don’t have a clean shot outta here.

“Nah, he’s way too far off,” I answer, feeling exhausted but alive. I feel alive for the first time since I got here. It’s great. Everyone gets attitude now.

The shot sails right over my shoulder, missing me by inches and decimating the car behind me, sending it into a crackling purple fireball. “Oooh,” I say, feeling a slight singe to the hair on the back of my arms. “Oooooh. Close.”

“Cronus he’s taking aim again! Move!” Kankri’s fingers dig into my arm and haul me out of the way, and I remember what happened in Seattle and that sends a cold rush of panic through me. It really motivates me to move, and I tie the straps of my backpack a little tighter as Kankri and I book it out of town. I don’t know if the Lord of Time even gives chase, but we don’t stop running until we clear the Goodbye Sign for Speckter Parc.

“Did we lose him?” Kankri wheezes, bracing his hands on his hips. At that moment, another strike of Red Miles comes down, digging bright red threads into whatever and whoever remains there. The heat waves rustles all the trees, blowing them back momentarily as the ground incinerates and boils Speckter Parc into a scorch mark. Kankri and I don’t say anything. No witty jabs or one-liners. We just turn and keep walking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had to re-take stats which is why the updates got so slow. But I went from a D to a B, which is really something. Also I'm out of school so hopefully that means more regular updates. Oh yes.


	33. Porrim reveals an elaborate ruse

We catch a lift from a guy in a bright orange truck, and he manages to get us as far as a motel that looks like it’s been sitting by the edge of the highway since the days of yore. Maybe at one point it used to halt travellers to ask riddles three but in the ages since it wheezed to death and went up in a cloud of flowery fabric.

“You know,” says the driver, leaning away and giving me a skeptical look. “You two smell a little like smoke.” An eyebrow piercing flashes menacingly, hidden way-away in lumberjack eyebrows.

“Yeah, well,” I answer, and that’s as far as I get, so I couple it with a few vague hand gestures. It doesn’t even convince me of my own innocence. “Well,” says the driver, drawing it out like a final sentencing. _Weeeeeelllll._ “You two boys take care of yourselves now.”

“Will do,” I answer, shouldering my backpack a little firmer. “Thanks, boss.”

I manage to book us into a room, because the hoodie goblin behind the front desk takes debit cards. I really, really cannot afford to keep financing this trip. I mean, there’s no way I can, no way in Hell. Maybe the universe would come through on this, but the only time the cosmic lines up for me and Kankri is just to strike us down. It’s so unfair, it’s massively unfair. My university fund is all about dried up. Maybe I should hope I fail so I can stop landing my family in massive amounts of debt and stop thinking about myself for once. A guy can dream.

The hoodie goblin wheezes from deep within the hooded confines and hands my room keys over, leaving gobbety smears of cheeto dust and spit on the envelope. I pick it up gingerly, trying to pinch it between my nails and not actually touch it with my skin. “Thank you,” I say to Hoodie Goblin, hoping they don’t notice I’m being a weirdo. A racket of pain suddenly crackles up my arm, snarling the envelope into a tight fist. “Sorry, sorry,” I say to them, trying to control my limbs and luggage at the same time. The Hoodie Goblin nods in what looks like a sympathetic manner and I’m down the hallway, heading down to my motel room.

There’s only one bed. I don’t expect it to matter to me, but it does, because I’m big and Kankri’s not and I don’t want to share. Kankri’s sitting on the edge of the bed, still sneakered and covered in the dust of Speckter. He doesn’t say anything, and after I shower, he’s still in the same spot, staring at a worn spot in the carpet.

“Kankri?” I ask, trying to towel off my hair with a cheap motel towel.

“We nearly died, again,” he says, running a thumb along the inside of his hand. “Cronus, I really would like some more insights about…whatever we’re doing, here. Some kind of help.”

“Uh,” I answer, adjusting the towel around my hips. “Look, Kankri, it’s not like this came with a manual, y’know?”

I feel smaller than ants. I should know the answer to all these questions. I dragged him all the way out here and I’ve done nothing but knock him around and mess with his head. Kankri nods, kicking his backpack over with one foot.

“Of course. I’m going to go shower.”

“No problem, boss!” I answer, my voice sounding artificially cheerful. “I saved some of the soap square for you.”

I nearly cringe at my own embarrassment, but Kankri doesn’t seem to notice, just merely wandering away into the yellowing bathroom. There's a sudden swirl of ink-like liquid at the corner of my eye, and I turn just in time to see Porrim scratching at her eyelid. Today’s outfit is very loose and off-the-shoulder, with her hair scrunched up into a high ponytail. She looks like she’s headed to a jazzercise class for space goths. I love it. Her leg warmers have stars on them. I need standards. There’s no way everything she does can be this phenomenal.

“Greetings, mortal,” she says, pointedly ignoring my staring. “You’re shaping up to be a real pain in the ass.”

“Porrim!" I blurt. “Porrim, oh my God, everything’s…” I gesture around, hoping she can get the message. I’m weak in the knees just looking at her. Somehow, her being here means that it’s okay. I may have lost everything, but I have my spirit guide and my sidekick. Porrim twists a stray lock of hair around her finger, the dark strand mixing in with her tattoos. She glances around the motel room, taking in the cracked plaster ceiling runners and flowery bedspread.

“Cronus, I, look,” she bites momentarily at her lip ring, and the buttery glint of it is hypnotizing. She presses her palms together, and pauses, working over the words. She looks so beautiful, like something out of an oil painting.

“I heard you went through a lot lately. You can go home now.”

For a moment, her words don’t sink in. The glow of beauty around her dulls slightly. Me? Home? Seriously? “I can’t go home yet,” I protest. “I’ve got a universe to save.”

“Actually, about that,” says Porrim reluctantly, twisting her hand into her hair again. I catch her eyes, and they’re glinting with defensiveness and something I can’t name. I can’t come to terms with it. “Did I do something wrong?” I ask quietly, recalculating the past little while. I was supposed to save Speckter, wasn’t I? That was my first test, and I totally blew it. A knot of hurt wells up in my throat. I had my shot and I wrecked it.

“Cronus,” says Porrim, rubbing one hand over her face in exasperation. “You couldn’t win in the first place.”

“What do you mean?” I ask, trying hard to talk around the swelling in my throat and chest. My throat goes dry and the room seems to tilt back and forth slightly. I sit down on the edge of the bed, wishing I thought to put on a little bit more clothes before this, and Porrim keeps talking, not making eye contact and moving through it as efficiently as she can. Take it all off at once.

“I mean, you don’t exactly know what I am, it’s kind of, I’m…space?” she says, pursing her lips and looking at me expectantly, like this is a totally normal thing. I think my heart’s breaking.

“Space,” I repeat. Porrim nods. “Living reincarnation of space. Star stuff. Et cetera,” her lips quirk into a funny little smile. “Space goddess. And the thing is, I’m kind of, I’m tired. I’m sick. Cronus, I’m really not cut out to be nurturing and all-loving. I didn’t want to be this any more than you wanted to get infected.”

I fold my hands to cradle an elbow in each palm. I can’t do this. This is too much to take in at once. “This is a lot to take in,” I say, staring at the carpet. “You’re doing really well,” Porrim reassures, awkwardly shifting her feet in the corner of my vision. “I’m sorry for lying to you. I just wanted to try something else. Oh, don’t cry, it’s okay.”

I tuck my face away from her and wipe my face off my sleeve, trying to keep my sobs down to a normal volume, the same sound as breathing too hard. “You went through a lot today,” said Porrim softly, moving to sit next to me. I don’t want her to touch me. I can’t handle that. She lied to me, she ruined my life, she ruined my whole life—

“You’ve wrecked everything,” I mutter into my palm. “You didn’t have to say anything”

“Yes I did.” She says. It’s a tone that stops arguments cold. She lied to me, she manipulated me, and she’s making me sound like the irrational one in just three words. And now I’m crying and I feel burned-out and used-up and now all I have is to go home. I bite down on my lower lip, trying to keep quiet, try to keep Kankri from coming out to check on me. I don’t want anyone to see me like this.

“I couldn’t do it any more,” says Porrim, sitting rigid on the bed, staring at the spots on her leggings. “What I did was…I used you, and that was wrong. I’ll…I want a real life, Cronus. I’m allowed to want stuff.”

“So we’re all going to die,” I ask, raising the hem of my shirt to wipe at my eyes. “Is that how it is?”

“You’re not exactly hero material Cronus. That’s…kinda why I picked you and Kankri,” she says, no hint of the same girl I knew before. No coyness or shyness or skirting around issues. It’s just us in this motel room, stuck together in the oppressing air and total honesty. She seems resolved to tell the truth no matter how much it hurts me. But none of that seems right to me. Maybe I can’t fix this, but I’m going to give it my best shot anyway. I pick at the inside of my palm, glancing up at Porrim. She’s backlit from the oily light behind her, and I can catch faint sparkles in her hair and in her eyes. Her eyes seem to be as deep as little galaxies, dark as an eclipse. I instantly feel big and gangly and tear-stained.

“Alright,” I say, trying and failing to choke off a hiccup.

“Bless you,” says Porrim, nodding for me to continue.

“Thanks. But I’m going to take a nap. I’m going to relax. And then I’m going to try my best to save the world.”

Porrim gives me a disapproving look, which just makes my insides churn. It’s the you-have-not-been-listening face. It settles into her pressing her lips flat together and scrunching her eyebrows. It’s not a look that instills me with confidence.

“And I’ll give you a real life too,” I promise. The Look deepens. I mean, I’m not likely to win, but I have to try.

“Um,” says Porrim. I give her a thumbs up, and she gapes, then bubbles into shocked laughter.

“For real?” she asks incredulously, little lines squishing into the sides of her nose. Sure, I’m heartbroken, and sure to be money-broken, but you know what? I don’t have a chance with this girl or even a shot at winning. But I’ve read too many books to quit.

“Either that or go back to high school. And die.”

Porrim breaks into a snorting laugh, something close to a cackle that starts in her nose. “Alright,” she says, waving a hand at me in an oh-you-silly-boy kind of way. “If you think you can do it, it’s not like I can stop you.”

She hoists herself off the bed, stretching her arms above her for a moment and makes a weird screechy noise at the apex of the stretch. I think that’s a normal thing. Serious runners do it. I think. Maybe she’s just a highly nuanced lady-type and I will never peer fully into the workings of her mind.

“Well,” she says. “I know you probably don’t want to see me again after such open dishonesty and et cetera but I kinda wanna see how this plays out.” I rub the heels of my hands under my eyes quickly to clear away any lingering tears or eye gunk.

“Is this the part where you leave all winsome?” I ask, blinking my eyes hard to clear any lingering redness. “See you later space cowboy?”

Porrim bursts into a grin again. “I like that. See ya round, wonder boy. Totally clichéd.” Ambling away from me, Porrim opens the motel door with a flick of her wrist and just like that, she’s gone. Not for good. But just for now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay look I know I promises updates. To be honest, I'm just as surprised at the lack of activity as you are. Am I behind? Yup. Should I fix it? Double yup. Do I regret? All the time.


	35. I meet a god between a hope and a horse place

I personally did not expect to wake up the next morning swaddled delicately in Kankri’s lily-pale arms. I expected to wake up on the opposite side of the bed, backs to one another, with the shared blanket stretched tight as a trampoline between us. Although waking up means potentially falling asleep at any point, which isn’t likely. Thoughts turn over and over in my brain, reeling at the sudden…sudden everything. I’m no longer a hero type. Everything I’ve done has been for nothing. And as if an existential crisis wasn’t enough, Kankri Vantas sleeps like it’s a contact sport. He sleeps like he has a big fucking bed and never has to share it with anyone. After the fourth backhand to the face, I start thinking about smothering him, even if it’s just to dampen the snoring. I throw his arm back to his side, and Kankri rolls over, the heel of the right foot nailing my calf as he stretches into a more comfortable position.

  
I take some deep breaths before slipping out of bed and back into clothes, throwing my shirt and pants on over my underwear. Then I take my shirt back off and put it on right-side-in, throw my jacket on over that, smothering the E-ticket flat to my chest. Might as well go for a walk, clear my head. Not kill my only friend. Think about things. Would Speckter still have fallen apart if I wasn’t there? Would Rufio still have died? Maybe no thinking. I think that would be better.

  
I quietly open the door to the motel room and head out into the parking lot. Tipping my head back, I stare up at the sky above. It’s crowded with stars, and smudged slightly around the edges with clouds. The moon gleams shiny and white and full. Porrim could be up there right now. She’s space or something. This tear in the dimensions probably affects her as much as it does me, but I don’t want to die. Does she? I can’t imagine wanting to leave this behind, I just want more of it and it’s unfair to deal me out so early. I tip my eyes back to Earth, and I immediately spot a pay phone. Weird. I didn’t know they still existed. I thought they just got taken out and….and ended up in motels at the end of the universe. Blowing on my hands to warm them up, I stare down the phone at the end of the lot. I’m not going to phone home. I’m going to stand here and mope and freeze my ass off, because that’s what the hero of the story would do. I might even compose a poem about how I’m so terrible at everything that I got picked because I’m least likely to succeed. I step over a concrete parking spot marker and settle down on it, gazing back up to the sky as the concrete sucks the warm out through my jeans. I try really hard to not think about my dad or my brother so of course, of course I think about my mom. _Dear mom, I don’t know where you are but I hope you’re happy and having a blast. Miss you lots and lots, your son, Cronus Ampora._

A car pulls suddenly into the parking lot, headlights bouncing over the speed bumps, and it nearly fishtails to pull into my spot before it stops dead.  
“Sorry!” I call out, and a cramp pulls my foot. “I’ll be out of here in a second, boss!”  
The car idles momentarily right at the opening of the parking spot before the driver’s door opens up and I head the thud of feet on the pavement. I can’t see whoever it is over the glare of the headlights, and I raise my hand up against the beams.  
“Look, it’s cool,” I say apologetically. “I’m just-“  
“Enjoying,” the driver says. “The Night?”

Every consonant in that sentence sounds like a bud of razor wire. Whoever this guy is, he sounds like a radio announcer in a horror movie. The ultimate voice of doom.  
“Uh, yeah,” I answer, swallowing a little bit as I stumble to my feet. “Yeah, I was just, yeah.” I try to think of something to say, to explain, but I don’t know how to convert the last little while into something I can explain.  
The grime of the parking lot crunches under his feet as he steps forward, gliding easily like a panther. His silhouette cuts between the headlights before he stops dead in front of me. We’d nearly be eye-to-eye, but while my height turned me into a slouchy gangly Igor it seems like his body is one that he built for himself. There was a Greek god like that once, wasn’t there? Roman?

The other guy clears his throat, a noise like someone stepping on the wheel of a skateboard. It makes the hair on my arms stand up. “You wanna get outta here?” he asks, shifting his weight to the other foot. “I know someone having a party. I can give you a ride.”  
“A party?” I repeat. I know Kankri’s asleep in the room behind me. Maybe I can run off with gorgeous here and be back before he snorts himself awake?  
“Yeah, a party,” he says, raising a hand to push his sunglasses further up his face. “You look like you need to cut loose.”  
I think about it. Party, handsome stranger, cool car, c’mon, it’ll only be for a few minutes. I need to blow off some steam and remind myself that not everything’s stupid and hopeless.  
“Sure,” I say. “I’ll go.”

His name is Dirk. It’s the middle of the night, his car is a nineteen-seventy-something with half a tank of gas, it’s dark, and he’s wearing sunglasses. What could go wrong? My stomach settles uneasily as a speed sign zips past, fading into the landscape behind us. I stare out the window, watching the forest go by. I don’t even know what state I’m still in anymore. There’s nobody else on the road, let alone any cops looking for speeders. Still, I squish as deep as I can into the space between the passenger door and the seat, ducking any alleged cops we zip by. The Cairo Overcoat Experience oozes from his speaker system, and it’s easy to recognize the slow slide of their single “Dark Matter.” It all fits very well together, so well it borders on surrealism.

“You smoke?” asks Dirk, not taking his eyes off the road.  
“What?”  
He chuckles. “Fine, play it like that. You want some weed?”

Oh, well. I swallow the little knot of peer pressure that builds in my throat and I nod. I mean, look at all the shit that happened when I was stone-cold sober. It’s not like a little bit of reefer is going to spin my situation into a worse one. Kiss my ass, D.A.R.E.  
Dirk puts the emergency lights on and pulls the car over to the side of the road, and we smoke up. It’s that easy, and it’s that fast. After the fourth toke, I feel like I’ve attained a level of nirvana I forgot about.  
“Damn,” I mutter, watching the smoke grope it’s way across Dirk’s stereo system.  
“I never feel it,” says Dirk, thudding his head back against his headrest a few times. “Don’t even know why I buy it.”

I take a breath in to respond, and my chest seizes up. All air in my body catches deep in my throat, turning as tight as a casket as I choke and sputter. White light buzzes in front of my eyes, flickering momentarily as dark shapes loom in on either side, closing in over me. Someone, Dirk, maybe, is calling my name, telling me to breathe, and I try. My chest lets go suddenly, like the snap of a rubber band, and I suck in deep breaths, leaning forward so far over my knees that my seatbelt starts to click.  
“What was that?” asks Dirk, reaching over to tentatively unbuckle me.  
“I’m sorry,” I answer. “I’m sorry, I’m dying.”  
There’s no sign of recognition in his face, and it’s quiet, until he admits, “That really sucks.”

The party’s being held at a big house in a nice suburb. By the time we get there, I’ve gone weird and twitchy. My thumbs won’t stop itching and I stick to the wall. The whole house reminds me of the last house party I went to, and it makes my heart pound. Maybe it’s the weed or maybe it’s the seizure, but either way, I don’t feel good. Impossibly cool teenagers walk by me and I thread through them on my way to the back of the house. I reach down, fish out my E-Ticket out of habit. Magic Kingdom has faded completely to white, and the black of the letters has faded to a faint light brown. The green around Adventureland is starting to lighten up as well. I don’t think that bodes well. I drop the ticket back to my chest. Maybe I should get a drink. I’m underage, and I’m in America, which makes me double-underage. My palms are practically dripping sweat. I don’t think a drink will help. I just need to go be alone for a little bit.

“Sorry, sorry,” I mumble as I head into a large bedroom near the back. It looks like it belongs to a teenage boy. Dark posters of men in suits and sunglasses are tacked up to the walls, the bed’s unmade, and the bookshelf is crowded with Chuck Pahlaniuk and Stephen King. Get a load of this guy. I head over and run a hand over the books collected there. I wonder if my dad’s read any of them. Maybe I should steal one for him.

“Hey,” says the bookshelf’s lower shelves, from somewhere around my knees. “Hey, you.”

  
I glance down, coming in contact with a box set of boy wizard books. I sink to my knees, glancing around the double parked books. I definitely heard something. I know I did.

“What?” I answer. It’s not like it’s any weirder than anything else that’s happened. I pull a few books back, looking for maybe a hidden passage. Talking bookshelf. I can deal with this. It’s not exactly like a giant as a windmill, but I’m too worn out to complain.  
“Are you talking to the bookshelf?” asks the bookshelf.  
“Uh,” I answer, sliding a can-do girl reporter book back into place and furtively glancing over the room. “No?”  
The bookshelf gives a harsh laugh. “Typical aquarius. Can’t admit when you’re wrong.”

I check the other side of the bookshelf, and there’s a small milk crate turned upside-down, weighted down with a stack of textbooks.  
“Bingo,” says the milk crate. “We have a winner.”

I get closer to the crate, squinching flat on my stomach to peer inside. Small orange hands slide out between two of the diamonds. “Look at you,” says whatever’s stuck in there. “You’re burnt out and you haven’t done anything. No hero-type actions. That’s what you get, you know, when you pick an aquarius for a main protagonist.”  
“Am I hallucinating?” I ask it, then wonder why I’d hallucinate something so mean. It’s like a Cheshire cat made of insults. I reach forward to touch one of the little orange hands and it pulls away.  
“Maybe,” says the milk crate nonchalantly. “I can’t tell you what to do.”

I shimmy forwards a little more on my stomach, trying to get a closer look at whatever’s stuck in there. It’s about the size of a stuffed animal, small and orange-skinned, dressed in a green shirt and dark shorts, looking like a bigger-than-average action figure. It moves, too, pacing the confines of the milk crate like a man on death row. We stare at each other for a moment, and then he says, “Personally, I would’ve picked that teen idol star to be the hero.”

“Look,” I answer, bracing my head on the inside of my arm. “That hurts my feelings. I’m trying my best.”  
He strides forwards on his stubby legs, wrapping his hands around the plastic separating us. He’s got tattoos on his knuckles, the right hand saying ‘hope’ and slightly squished on the left, ‘horse.’  
“Guess what?” he says. “Your best sucks.”  
“Uh, you suck. What even are you, some kind of action figure?”

The little guy sputters, waving me off with a devil-take-you backhand. “I used to be a god around here,” he snipes, giving me a sneer that could probably kill me if he were any bigger.  
“What, in the suburbs? Neil Gaiman, is that you?” I volley back.  
“I used to control all this,” laments the tiny man, gesturing around at the milk crate. “I am The Huss, and this used to be my world. I used to be a god! I lost all of it and now I’m stuck here, because of some asshole in a green helmet.”  
“Wait,” I say, picking myself up to lean on my elbows. “You mean the King of Time?”  
The Huss cringes. “Lord of Time. God, have some respect for genius.”  
“Yeah, whatever. Tell me about it.”  
“For free? I don’t think so. From the way things are, as I understand,” says The Huss, leaning on the edge of the milk crate. “You might be short of a, uh, spirit guardian.”

I can feel my expression sour. Whatever he has to say about Porrim, I don’t know if I’m ready to hear it. She might have done a bad thing, lying to me like that, but I don't want to talk shit in some grimy bedroom with a little orange dude. When I don’t answer, he pushes his case. “Look, you’re nobody’s choice. But I got a god-ness to reclaim, and you need help. That’s a noble cause, right? Heroic and just?”  
“You’re bluffing,” I tell him. “You don’t know shit. You’re no god. You’re two feet tall. You’re, like, a smaller god.”  
“So?” answers The Huss with a shrug. “Still more god than you are.”  
He’s right. I change tack. “What good can you do?”  
The Huss clears his throat with a harrumph. “For starters, I see all.”  
“Doubt it.”  
“Fuck you, you’re an aquarius. Ain’t no good for nobody. Good luck and future vision, what else you want?”  
I scowl, leading up on one elbow. “How about proof?”

The Huss folds his arms, taps one foot like a pissed-off sales assistant. “I created the world, and now I’m hiding in the suburbs. Nothing good ever comes out of these neighbourhoods. Help me, Cronus. Help me help you. I’m desperate here,” he says, folding his hands together and kneeling on the carpet.  
“You’re playing me,” I say, standing up. “No deal, big guy.”  
“Everyone’s playing you, Cronus,” squeaks The Huss from near the floor, his hands rattling the confines of his crate. “Who else do you have?”

That gives me pause. Sure, he has a bad attitude but Porrim hasn’t done anything for me lately. It’s a chance. What the Hell, why not.

I turn and grudgingly shift the textbooks off, and flip the crate over with one foot. The Huss blinks his bleach-white eyes at me, then toddles under the bed, bending almost comically at the waist like a teddy bear.  
“Where you going?” I ask, watching as he slowly drags out a mason jar stuffed with money.

“Tah-dah,” he trills. “You were having money trouble, weren’t you? Here y’go. A free fortune. You’re welcome. Let’s roll.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Boy howdy do I sure love my Blues brothers jokes. There's the most recent update, sorry about the delay, although four days late isn't that bad.


	36. The duo becomes a trio, but we're still screwed

I barely crack the door open when Kankri’s already throwing abuse at it.

“Where the heck were you! I woke up and I—“

I quietly close the door, cutting off Kankri mid-yowl. I give The Huss an awkward smile. “That’s Kankri,” I volunteer, hooking my thumb at the closed door, which thumps as Kankri throws his shoe against it. The Huss appraises the door with pursed lips. “Yes,” he says slowly and decisively. “Yes, I remember him. Unfortunate. His younger brother has more potential.”

I curl my hand tight around the doorknob. Maybe he can say that kind of thing about me, but saying stuff like that about Kankri and Kankri’s family, who sound really well adjusted to me, crosses a line. You don’t talk badly about other people’s family, no matter what it looks like. I hazard the door open a little bit, and slide my face right into the chain. Looks like I’m locked out for good.

“Kankri, open the door. I’m back. I got money.”

“How,” says Kankri icily. “How did you get that money?”

I glance down at The Huss, who mimes what’s clearly a blow job.

“Look, Kankri, it’s a long story, and I’d rather be like, inside?” I hazard, bumping the door with a knuckle. There’s no answer. “Kankri, come on, after all we went through? You’re gonna break the team up for this? The dynamic duo? The Sam and Frodo? The Don Quixote and the uh,” I think about it. “The horse?”

Kankri shoulder the door shut in my face. I hammer my fist into it. “Dude! Not cool!”

The door flies open, the knob snarled deep within Kankri’s pale and clammy grip. His hair’s wicked up in every direction, stuck up with perspiration and anxiety. His irises seem redder, and the scleras around them bleached with panic. “Cronus,” he says, eyes quickly taking in me, the money, and The Huss. “We have a situation.”

We end up sitting on the unmade bed, both of us sitting cross-legged and knees nearly touching. The Huss switches the TV on and starts flickering through the channels, the volume dialled down to two marks.

“Okay,” said Kankri. “What happened with you?”

“I went to a party with a really hot guy.”

“Oh, Cronus,” says Kankri, eyebrows pushing together and upper lip snarling toward his nose. “You can’t say that, that’s objectification.”

“What? It’s a compliment!” I protest. Can I not say people are hot anymore? What’s this world coming to? Maybe I will let Porrim down and not save the universe. See what I care.

“It is not! Saying he has a nice personality is a compliment!” says Kankri. “You’re just reducing him down to the sum of his body!”  

“You two,” says The Huss, settling in to watch the news. He doesn’t even look over. “You, Kankri, you are insufferable. And Cronus, you’re deeply unhappy and you drag people down with you. Now, both of you shut up, I want to see what you humans have done to this planet.” Kankri and I meekly keep our mouths shut, and The Huss turns up the volume on a story about a stolen pirate ship. He breaks into a wide smile and starts shaking his head. “What do you know,” he mutters. “How’d you like that?”

Kankri leans slightly toward me. “What is that thing?” he whispers.

“He, uh, he used to be a god? His name’s The Huss?” I answer, trying to think about that answer. “I found him in a crate at the party.”

Kankri looks at me, then over at The Huss, then nods slowly. I know that feeling. “Do we really need him?” he asks out of the side of his mouth. “What about your space avatar, can’t she help?”

I think every muscle in my body contracts. Kankri doesn’t know. Shit. Shit! I can’t tell him, I won’t tell him, not right away, at least. I can feel everything start to unspool, and The Huss glances knowingly at me. If I tell Kankri it’s not legit, he’ll go home, and I’ll be all alone again. I’ll be all alone and I’ll die. I don’t want to lose this friendship.

“One more god can’t hurt, right?” I answer weakly. Kankri purses his lips and bobbles his head from side to side. I’m safe, for now.

“Check it out,” says The Huss, moving to sit on the end of the bed. “You two made the news.”

I twist around so sharply I feel like I snap my own neck. Me and Kankri’s yearbook photos are plastered behind a white-blond news anchor, who stares solemnly into the camera. “And in recent news,” he says, square jaw chewing on every letter. “A couple of young Canadian terrorists are rampant and on the loose.”

“Oh shit,” I mutter, turning fully around.

“Yeah,” says Kankri. “That’s why I was so distraught when I woke up alone. I thought you’d been taken in.”

The news anchor keeps shovelling out more and more fake news about me and Kankri, listing all our past highlights. Both of us escaping from a hospital for possibly life-threatening illnesses, hopping the border illegally, Rufioh’s death, and topping it off with a wide-shot of the Speckter crater. “That one's not even our fault!” I protest, watching smoke rise above a treeline. The Huss chuckles, shaking his head slowly. “You two boys, you’re in over your head on this one,” he says, throwing a glance over his shoulder at the two of us.

“If spotted, do not approach or attempt to apprehend,” says the newscaster, staring through the screen sternly. “They are potentially dangerous. A reward is offered by various organizations for their detainment, and comes at a total for fifty, thousand dollars for the pair. Families have not deigned to comment at this time.”

“Fifty thousand!” I shout, and someone bangs on the wall from the other side. “What the shit! I could go to two universities on that!”

“Not with your grades, buster,” says The Huss quietly, picking at a seam on the bed.

“Obviously,” says Kankri, slumping back against the pillows. “We can’t take public transportation anymore.”

“Okay, okay, you’re right, fuck. What do we do?” I ask, running my hands through my hair. We’ve got to get out of this motel as soon as we can, and keep moving, but man, getting spotted right now is not ideal. Especially in America, man, I do not want to get shot and have to sell my eyes to pay for medical care. The Huss clears his throat, waddling in a little circle to face us without getting up. The sheets ruck up around him like a little nest. “Gentlemen,” The Huss says, steepling his fingers. “It’s time we got our own set of wheels.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is the update for October! Thanks for waiting and for all the compliments/comments/kudos! That really means a lot and I've saved all of them in an email folder. Thank you!


	37. We buy a car from the creepiest car lot in America

We dig into the Bottomless Jar of Cash for the fifteen dollars necessary for a cab to the an address given to me by The Huss, who decides to camp out in my backpack and whisper directions to me. This whole situation gets weirder and weirder the longer I come in contact with it. I mean, why am I suddenly at the mercy of a tiny god? Why would anyone keep this much cash stashed in a jar under a bed? This whole thing has gotten so far off the rails. I work my E-ticket around and around my fingers, knotting it around my knuckles, hoping to channel some of my anxiety into it. The Huss has not directed us to anything useful, but instead, to a used-car lot. Balloons dance at the end of their lines, nodding happily in the spring breeze while cars are advertised for cheap, cheap, cheap.

“Do not question the narrative convenience,” The Huss advises, leaning out of the top of my backpack. “Sometimes, things need to happen the way they happen.” Kankri looks less than thrilled at this new development. Worse, he’s gotten quiet. He doesn’t bitch and moan about the situation any more, but instead glowers and sulks like an overheated ghost at my shoulder. I stare silently over the gleaming row of hoods in front of us as Kankri doles the money out to the cab driver.

“So,” I say quietly to The Huss. “How is this gonna work?”

“Super simple stuff, big guy,” says The Huss, his voice humming in my ear like a bunch of bees. “We go in there, I tell you what to say, you say it, we drive out. Easy dealings.”

“I’m sixteen. I can’t buy a car. Is Kankri gonna get a really big jacket and stand on my shoulders or something?”

“It’s gonna work,” answers The Huss, sounding one hundred percent confident with his plan. “I know it will.”

Kankri ghosts up to my side. “What’s the plan?” he asks as we start falling into step towards the auto lot. “Tell me you got a plan, Cronus.”

“Well, you see Kankri,” I mutter, slicking my hair back with one hand and adopting a swagger into my walk. “We’re gonna trust in the universe.”

Kankri’s look of disgust, no matter how many times I see it, is a delight. He skeptically scans the advertising billboard, his lips wrapping silently around the name before he spits out, “Bro Strider? What kind of name is that?”

Bro Strider’s car lot seems to specialize in one thing and one thing only: Restoration. And restoration of really, really, old, fancy cars. Nearly minutes after we stride inside the slightly frosty dealership, we are faced with the big man himself while we eye down a car that looks like something that would be owned by a rich villain to run over orphans. But here he is. The king of the deal. Lord of the car lot. The eponymous Bro Strider himself. The kind of guy who wears pinstripe pants and a blazer paired with a snapback. A Southern accent so thick that a single drawl could choke you. If you picture any man calling himself “Bro” as a first name, Bro Strider would fit it to a tee. Look at this trust-money chump; my dad could rip him apart with one hand.

“Howdy there boys,” says Bro, gesturing us with one crooked finger into a nearby office. “Y’all lookin’ for a good buy?”

“Agree with him,” prompts The Huss, ducking down to hide as much as he can behind my neck. His big eyes are probably peeping over the edge like a goldfish. Bro Strider raises a pale blonde eyebrow at me, and reaches for a pair of shades on the edge of his desk. The pointy-edged triangle ones. I feel like I’ve seen them before, and a wave of deja vu sluices in my head. “You betcha!” I answer. “Just got my license and looking to go on that big American road trip!” Bro Strider cracks into a grin like razor wire as me and Kankri settle into ergonomic business chairs. The kind also spotted in principal’s offices. In the seat next to me, Kankri shifts his weight slightly, casting his eyes to the walls, away from the guy in front of us. I momentarily give the office walls a look-over too. A couple business degrees. Shelves with muppet beanie-babies. A couple ornamental knives in little stands. The whole thing feels closer to someone’s dorm room rather than an actual office.

“Ain’t that something!” says Bro, folding his hands into a big upside-down basket and braces his thumbs into the sockets of his cheekbones. “What kinda model y’all lookin’ for?”

“Cheapest one he’s got,” mutters The Huss. “And we’re gonna undercut him.”

“We need something really, really cheap,” I answer honestly. “I don’t want to spend too much of my dad’s money.”

Bro puts his sunglasses on. Indoors. I don’t like this guy. “Aren’t you a well-behaved son-of-a-gun, huh? Your mama and daddy must be real proud to have a son like you,” he says, and even if it doesn’t mean to sound insinuating but The Huss’ small pinch on the side of my neck reminds me to keep my cool. “You know it,” I answer. The temperature in the room drops what feels like four degrees. Silence first hangs, then looms, twisting like rubber. Kankri coughs, and Bro Strider slowly lets his hands fall to the desk.

“Hey now,” he says, swishing a pointer finger back and forth between me and Kankri. “Haven’t I seen your faces before?”

“No way,” says Kankri disdainfully. “And we’re here to buy a car. You selling or not?”

Bro Strider waves him off, flicking his fingers to pop Kankri’s bubble of indignation.

“So tell me about it,” he says, smile not wavering. It’s framed by frown lines and I can see a few grey hairs lying down smooth around his temples. “You famous or something?”

The Huss leans up to prompt me, but he’s not fast enough.

“Actually,” I answer, with the fuck-you gravitas that gives weight to my words. “I’m not famous. I’m just dying.”

Bro Strider’s fingers twitch. “Oh,” he says, voice coolly neutral. I give him a close-lipped smile. “Yeah. Buying a car, the road trip. Last wish thing.”

“Sorry to hear that,” says Bro Strider. Maybe he is, but all I hear and feel is the same choking emotion that I haven’t felt since the pep rally way back when.

“Whatever,” I answer. “Let’s go see those cars of yours.”

We follow after Bro’s sloping gait down past the nice cars, to the kinda-nice cars, to the rejects. The ones that haven’t really been retouched. They’re actually closer to being untouchable, but we can’t afford to be picky, literally.

“Y’all boys said you needed somethin’ real cheap, riiiiight?” drawls Bro, stopping with a swivel by the hood of a light blue monster. The grill is squashed up flat, and it’s got a low set of headlights and a drooping bumper. It looks, weirdly enough, like a Persian cat. “Check her on out, she is unlocked,” prompts Bro. “The Moira Roadrunner. They do not make cars like this anymore, no sir, she is a nineteen sixty-seven classic.” I give the door handle an experimental tug, and slide into a car full of dead air. I toss my backpack into the back seat behind the driver’s seat, trying to keep from breaking the Ibanez or hurting The Huss. I’m not going to have to deal with the bad karma that comes with killing a small god in a car lot.

The inside of the car is furry where it’s not broken up entirely. Cigarette burns constellate across the dash, and the upholstery on the seats is done in a fluffy orange material. It reeks of old cigarette smoke. I do what I can to ignore the slight licking feeling on the back of arms from this damn stuff and settle my hands around the steering wheel. Something about this seems right. Yes. I am buying. A car. This car, with the brown and pale orange inside, the kind that seems lonely, like one of those really old dogs at the animal shelters. I drum my fingers a bit, settle my butt further into the seat. I still feel like this is a good idea. It’s got a roomy backseat, a missing driver’s-side handle to get out, just a little pull-string mechanism that I can tug on to open the door, and that’s probably not street legal. And yet, I like it. I take one hand off the steering wheel to run it over the chunky radio, running my finger along a slit for a CD player. I like this car. I’m getting good vibes here. Besides, it doesn’t have to last forever anyway.

“Now see here,” says Bro, leaning into my window like a goblin. “Normally we’d try to retouch ‘er, see, little diamond in the rough sorta thing? We just ain’t got round to this one yet, not yet,” he stops for a quick laugh. “But I would be pleased to give ‘er off to a fine young gentleman such as yourself and your, uh, friend. Here.” I glance over, trying to keep my composure up.

“How much?”

“We-e-elll,” drawls Bro, scratching at one side of his nose. Kankri draws up into his seat, frozen still as a startled deer. “I was reckonin’ you’d have a five thousand dollar price range?” There’s a shuffling behind me as The Huss clambers up to pinch at my ear.

“Three thousand. Don’t budge on it,” he advises, looking over my shoulder to stare at Bro Strider. “How about-“

“What’s that!” Bro shouts, snapping his hand forward and plucks The Huss effortlessly out of my bag. “Now what do y’all got here?” he asks again, standing up with The Huss gripped tightly in one of his hands. “No!” shouts Kankri, practically kicking his door open to get out. I give the strings a hard tug and throw my shoulder into the door to unstick it, stepping back into the Oregon spring weather. The Huss stares widely and unblinkingly at Bro Strider, and from the other side of the car, Kankri sputters, “Action figure?”

“Beg your pardon?” says Bro, watching The Huss dangle in the air like the prize from a claw machine. “Action figure!” says Kankri again with conviction. “It’s a prototype that we picked up, at, uh,” he flounders. I don’t even look over, but I pick up his slack. “Picked him up at Seattlecon,” I lie smoothly. “Right next to the Keyote Carnage games.”

“For real?” answers Bro, settling his hands around The Huss’ tiny ribcage and squeezing tight. “I love little toys like these. Does he talk at all?”

“I am a God! Death to those who do not believe!” thunders The Huss. A cloud passes across the sun overhead. Kankri makes a noise like a leaky balloon, and I lose a little bit of optimism I didn’t even know I had. Thankfully, miracle of miracles, Bro Strider brays out a laugh and I feel the tension go out of my shoulders. “Ain’t that hilarious! Tell you boys what, you leave this little guy with me, I’ll give y’all the car at four hundred, how bout that?” Bro offers, giving me a sharp-toothed smile over The Huss’ tiny head. “Or,” says Kankri, threading around the front of the car. “You could give us that back, and we’ll get you the real deal when it comes out. And the car for three hundred.”

“The real deal?” repeats Bro, rolling the words around his mouth like he’s trying to figure out the taste. The cloud drifts past, casting more sunlight over the car lot. I don’t feel like I’ve brought my A-game this early in the morning. Maybe if we waited until noon we’d have a better chance at haggling. A twitch in my arm starts up, and I’m too tired to worry about it.

“Yes sir,” I answer, feeling my mouth going dry. A muscle in my calf starts to jump like it’s trying to call me out. “The real deal. That one’s still the beta testing phase. Few glitches, bugs, you know.” Bro Strider clicks his teeth together like he’s considering it, and glances back down to The Huss, hanging limply from his hand like he’s already dead. He gives him another hard squeeze, the kind you use on arms or on wet dishcloths. When The Huss doesn’t give an answer, he tries again. “Come on, you son of a—“

“Bugs,” says Kankri from behind me. “Like Kuh, like my friend said.”

Bro Strider nods, pale tongue rasping against one canine tooth. “Alrighty there boys, y’all got yerselves a car. Three thousand. Let’s sign some papers.”

I’m fully prepared to keep lying when we get back into the office. I’ve committed this far to the lie, might as well just trudge in deeper. For the sake of the universe or whatever. Bro Strider even looks the other way when it comes to forging a few details “here and there” mostly in exchange for the upcoming The Huss action figure that is never gonna see his desk. When he dangles the keys between two fingers in front of my face, I practically snap them up with my teeth.

“Now, y’all make sure to send that figure to the office,” says Bro, and hooks a thumb over his shoulder at a mostly empty shelf. “He’s gonna go riiiiiight there.” I look over a little bit, and lock eyes with another glassy-eyed puppet, with big blue eyes and orangey ropelike arms slumped to one side in a display case. I get the feeling that if I shifted my weight from side to side that the stare would follow me. I want to keep watching it, make sure it’s true. Kankri’s fingers snare deep into my bicep.

“Time to go, Cronus,” he says, voice sounding tight with fear.

There’s no discussion until we’re back in the car with Bro Strider’s car lot disappearing behind us in the rearview. “Man,” says Kankri, clawing at his arms. “What a creepy place.”

“Indeed,” says The Huss softly from the backseat. “It is a wretched place, I realize now. Infected by the influence of the Lord of Time.”

“What!” Kankri yelps, twisting around as far as his seatbelt will allow. “Lord of Time? There?”

The Huss clambers forward to slide between the passenger and driver seats. “Some places are liminal enough to let influence seep through. Car lots, motels…”

“Hospitals,” I add, watching the needle of the speedometer waver. The engine sounds kind of growly to me. Is that a good thing? Hmm. I bet there’s no owner’s manual in the glove compartment. “That’s the stuff,” The Huss agrees. “Yo, Aquarius, turn the radio on.”

That was nearly an informational moment, The Huss. I knew Bro Strider scared the hell outta you but if you’re not gonna into spooky universe stuff, I’d rather not either. I take one hand off the wheel to fiddle with the pre-programs until something familiar warbles through the speakers. I adjust the dial just once, and the song comes through clearly.

“Hold up,” I say, turning the volume up a little more. “I know this one!”

Kankri gives me an incredulous look. “I pegged you as more of a rock and roll and alternative kind of guy.”

I shake my head and keep listening. The Pop Culture Cameos, the little band I thought I had left behind in Edmonton. It’s been so long since I’ve heard them and now, here they are, and here I am. In a different country, in a semi-stolen car, with two friends and the end of the world and a deadly disease. The ukulele and flute brings harmony to my soul, even just to hear it this one more time. My eyes sting and water and I stare straight out at the road in front of us. I don’t know where I’m going, but I’m hoping that whatever’s gotten me this far, luck, universe, fate, Porrim, whatever, that it’s still holding out for me. Stretching out uncomfortably in the cupholders, The Huss begins singing along loudly and off-key until Kankri shakes his head and stares out the passenger side window.

_You wouldn’t think, oh, you’d never realized before_

_Don’t care where you are, I’d like to see you!_

_Oh-wah-oh, and you’ll never be lonely,_

_No no no, and you’ll see constellations,_

_It’s a real big world, and I’d like to spend it with youuuuu._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Although updates might be slow on this one, don't worry, they are still going to happen, I am in too deep to quit now. But the end of this one is coming up soonish, hopefully I won't be plugging away at this one in the span of a year from now but then again you never know. Thanks so much for all the reviews and kudos left on this, it's much appreciated and I have absolutely checked out everyone who leaves kudos behind.


	38. The Gang shows up at a diner

I only end up driving for an hour before my arms start to shake right at the elbows. It makes me grip the wheel tighter, lock my arms and eyes straight, looking out over the road. My elbows still pop up and down like bendy straws. The song ended a while ago, and I feel drained of life and stretched too thin.

“Cronus,” says Kankri, sympathy souring his voice. “Cronus, c’mon. I can drive.”

“I’m fine.”

“Check his ticket,” says The Huss from the backseat. The green’s already half-bleached into white, but he doesn't need to know that. Kankri reaches for it, and I shift away. “Hey, The Huss, don’t be a snitch,” I say, glancing into the rearview. I’m following Highway 5, but it doesn’t matter, we’re just a couple of kids with nowhere else to go. Little roadsigns for hunky-dory townships and cottage countries dot the landscape in between the pines, but after Speckter Parc I’m not going near any of them. Not unless it’s for gas and a sandwich. My stomach rumbles. Maybe four sandwiches. Man, this sucks. This whole situation sucks. I'm hungry, I'm exhausted, I've got no plan, no direction, I'm wanted for terrorism, and to make matters worse, I don't even have the energy to be pissed, which makes the whole thing suck even more. This is a level of things being Bad that I did not know existed. Thanks, universe! 

“Buddy, I got more good characteristics in my entire body than you got in a pinky toe,” says The Huss, keeping up his argument even though I'm not really listening. He stretches his stubby legs almost to the edge of the bench seat. “Don’t start something you can’t handle, grasshopper.”

Kankri heaves the sigh of a martyr and rolls his eyes to the spotted ceiling of the Roadrunner. “Cronus,” he says curtly. “If you will not allow me to drive, you could at least get us to a diner.”

“Seconded!” says The Huss cheerfully. “Breakfast mutiny!”

“Brunch,” corrects Kankri. “It’s nearly noon.” The Huss narrows his eyes at Kankri, sizing him up, and I decide to step in before we all decide travelling’s not our thing and kill each other. “We’re all grouchy, tired, and hungry, okay? Let’s get brunchfast, and then Kankri’s gonna drive, and The Huss is going to play the shut-up game for the next hour. Any questions?” I ask, and nearly startle at how much I sound like my dad on long childhood roadtrips. _Your mother’s gonna take a nap, I’m going to drive, Cronus is going to stop punching Eridan, and Eridan’s gonna stop trying to put his fingers up Cronus’ nose. Any questions?_

“You’re smiling,” says The Huss, sounding unnerved.

“Not a question. And during breakfast, we can figure out where we’re headed next,” I add on, because maybe there’s no better addition to toast than fake-planning. We rumble up to a diner that seems to specialize in eggs, eggs, and more eggs, sharing space with a gas station.

“Cronus, can you go get us a table?” says Kankri once we're out of the car, stretching his pale arms over his head. “I can handle getting the gas for the car.”

“I’m fine, chief, I can do that,” I lie. I feel like I could honestly drop dead, universe be damned. Kankri gives me the slowest, most condescending once-over that I’ve honestly ever gotten in my entire life. I can feel his gaze slick over my skin like grease, and I just shrug. “Okay,” I huff. “Fine, be the big man. Go fill the tank, you stallion in mom jeans.”

“Cronus,” warns Kankri. "That tone is moderately offensive to me, and I'd rather you did not use it."

I could easily give him crap for this, for his tone too, but instead I give him two big goofy thumbs up. Kankri scowls and yanks the handle off the pump, punching in orders to the gas pump with his thumb. I open the backseat door on the far side and let The Huss tumble to the gravel. "Jeez," he says, giving a disparaging look at Kankri. "What's eating your friend there?"

And I'm about to refute him when I realize, yeah, Kankri's kind of my best friend, mostly by default. I don't know if I've told him that yet. I should, I really should. I probably would have died at least like, five times if it wasn't for him. The Huss glances up at the sky and squints, then adds, “I don’t know who coloured the sky out here, but I don’t like the colour.”

Old God yells at sky for being the wrong shade of blue. I think we’re all tired and grouchy. After this, I’m checking us into a motel and we’re all gonna get some good sleep. A good solid eight hours, in real beds. The Huss glances up on me, and I realize I spoke out loud. To my surprise, The Huss nods. “That’s a good plan, Aquarius man,” he says, and we head through the green-and-yellow doors of the diner.

After we get a table for three, The Huss immediately flips open a menu, and starts chortling at the names of the food.

“Order this one,” he says, pointing to one of the items on the menu, fingerprint joining the multitude of others on the greyish plastic.

“I’m not doing a single thing you tell me to do,” I answer, folding up my menu around me like the screen around a bathtub. These food names are all terrible. This place is terrible. Maybe it's just my bad mood wrecking my perception, but this place seems to be full of exactly two people, truckers, and families with kids. And not one kid, but at least three. Humpty-Dumpty's restaurant is full of small kids whining about crayons, about not wanting to eat pancakes, about not wanting to eat eggs, and parents intoning, "Now I'm going to count to _three!"_  

Somebody's snot-nosed sprog goes racing by my table and slips on the floor, sprawling out with the force of it. They burst into wails of pain, and Dad, alerted by the cry of his spawn, lumbers up to take the kid back to the presumable safety of the table, and also French Toast. Humpty-Dumpty’s, while not just specializing in small slimy children, seems to also specialize in eggs, forced cheer, and really embarrassing names. Yes, ma’am, I would love to have Uncle John’s Rootin’ Tootin’ Wakey-Wakey Eggs and Bakey Platter with a side of toast. I would love to look someone in the face and say that.

“Do it, Cronus,” says The Huss. “For the good of the universe.”

I swipe a palm over my jeans, trying to clear the sweat off it. A waitress at the other end of the restaurant starts fiddling with an old TV suspended in one corner, flipping easily past a documentary about aliens to the Holla Network. That program, now that catches my interest. It's super-saturated with orange, but I don't know if that's a fault of the special boy Dave Strider who runs it or if it's just the TV. Dave Strider's face swings into view on-screen, and while the volume is low enough that I can't catch the words I catch the meaning. Spring break! Come on down to California for spring break! Girls in bikinis or even just tasteful pixels bounce through crashing waves, shrieking and running from boys with the kind of musculature that always made my mouth dry. Even seeing the ad is kind of crazy. I mean, it's spring break. Back home, it's spring break. If I were back home, I'd be moping around at home right now, playing records and hanging out with...

My head begins to ache for real, burrowing and Athena-like, growing near the back of my head and spreading down the bottom. I can't remember, who would I be hanging out with. Nobody? Was there somebody? Did I have friends before? I tear my eyes off the screen and the perfect people having fun in the sun and force myself to focus on the menu. I start wondering if I can just order a bunch of sides, when I hear someone say, “Well, he is a growing boy, so how about the Sausage Supreme?” I flip my menu down, staring at what used to be an empty seat. Porrim crosses one knee over the other, looking dressed to kill and wearing way more makeup than should be legal to wear to brunch. High-waisted silk pants with a crop top today, buttery gold lip ring and hair braided neatly into two plaits. Even her eyes look beautiful, dark brown and deep and unreadable as space. 

“Porrim!” I gasp, and she crooks a smile at me. “You look awful,” she says. “You sleeping okay?” “Why, Porrim, is that genuine concern?” I ask, doing everything I can to sound winsome and roguish. The Huss clears his throat, head barely clearing the table. “You two knock it off,” he warns. “It it’s gonna happen, it’ll have already happened.” Porrim gives The Huss a look of unbridled disgust. “Who died and gave you your godhood back?” she snipes, the iridescent folds of her green dress even seeming to bristle with annoyance. “Oh, nobody,” responds The Huss lightly. “When did you decide to regulate yourself to love interest?”

“You guys!” I interject. “God, just shut up, just shut the fuck up and stop fighting. I'm sick of it.”

Porrim purses her lips. “Wow,” she supplies. “You guys are just in worse and worse shape every time I show up.”

“He kind of sucks at this,” The Huss pipes up from the end of the table. “Also, I want the Ham-Slinging Rasher and Slasher Plate. Please.”

Porrim ignores The Huss, reaching over to brush some of my hair off my face. I suddenly realize how gross I am, and she misreads my recoiling as something different. “Hey, no, it’s okay, it’s okay,” she says softly, her fingers on the side of my ear. “I’m not going to hurt you. You just look really worn out.” I force myself to stay still and ignore The Huss' disgusted sputtering from the other side of the table. “I feel worn out,” I admit, watching the type on my menu squiggle into worms. “I can’t even read this." I slump a little bit, knowing how much I'm falling short. It's just exhaustion, I know that, but it doesn't help my ego much. I know that Porrim picked me because I was least likely to succeed, but man oh man. I hate looking like an idiot.

“Here,” says Porrim, sliding the menu over to her side of the table. “How about banana pancakes? I’ve never had them, but they’ve got whipped cream," she says, turning the menu around to show me the picture. They do look good, and my stomach rumbles again. At this point, I could eat a horse. 

“Bet you’ve had that before,” mutters The Huss.

“Banana Pancakes sounds really good,” I answer, settling my head into my arms. “Let Kankri know.”

“Don’t take a nap!” says The Huss, and I can hear his chair moving backwards as Porrim settles her hand on the space between my shoulder blades. “You get back here, you useless!”

Porrim shushes him, her hand sliding back and forth on my shoulders before reaching up to tousle my hair at the nape of my neck and I fall asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had to split this into two chapters, the back part's not done yet. But soon! Hopefully soon! We're technically past the halfway mark but geez, what a long story. You guys have gone through a lot. A lot of things. Thank you for reading, I really appreciate it!


	39. We set the diner on fire

I think this is a dream, because I’m back by the ocean and sandy like a chicken breast. Waves curl and tumble and sluice up politely to the shore, wetting the sand to a dark brown. I feel like the cottage by the sea isn’t too far from here, but today already looks different. It’s not overcast at all. Seagulls wheel freely up through the air, squeaking happily against sky the colour of fresh-mixed-blue paint, the sun radiant and hot far above the sand. The sand crumbles underneath my bare feet, the kind that’s associated with boardwalk food and suntan lotion, the kind of sand that you find like, six months later.

There’s a path leading away from the beach, and I follow it. Once in a while, I step on a root or a pebble, prompting a few swears from me. The tall fence and gate of the cottage are still there at the end of the path, but now have trellises spiked around the outside with grape vines sternly cultivated to each fan of wooden slats. I’m pretty hungry, I am a growing boy after all, but I leave the grapes be. I put my shoulder and arm into the latch, bumping it up out of place to hip-check the gate open.

“I’m here!” I announce, throwing my arms wide. “All hail the conquering hero of infinity and beyond!”

The garden’s been relatively tamed, with an open-umbrella of drying clothes pegged to the left of the front door. Bedsheets and towels and pairs of red-marked dresses hang from the wires, and little jars of candles have been strung from new posts in the yard. Sure, there’s absolutely no borders on the gardens yet, which are still clinging to the last of their fluffy-headed dandelions and crabgrass, but the grass has been cut down enough. I step onto the lawn, feeling the prick of grass against my bare feet. I drop my hands to my sides and slump to lie down, then roll over onto my stomach. Then to my back. Then back over, rolling across the yard like a kid before I come to a complete stop, the cottage shifting far away before coming in to somewhere else. The cottage by the sea is gone, and I can’t feel the grit of sand on my body anymore. I try to blink, to move, to figure out where this dream’s gone now, but I can’t move. Something keeps making a whirring, a clicking noise, somewhere to my left.

“Howdy, Croooo-nus!” says someone, stepping in relatively to my field of vision. Through dry eyes, I can see it’s Nurse Jane, from eons ago. Man, I would love to see her go to the beach, swimsuit, swim naked, I do not care. Anything to help the dying. Have mercy, I’ll take any order, doctor! Nurse Jane skims a hand along the inside of my arm, just out of my peripheral vision. I can see her shoulder moving, so her hand must be moving but I don’t feel a thing.

“Cronus, you awake in there?”

I un-peel my face from the table. Literally. My skin stretches, and it makes a noise, like _shhhhhck._ Kankri and The Huss do not look impressed. “You awake in there now?” Kankri asks impatiently. “Or did you just pass out on the table? You didn’t pass out on the table, did you?” he adds, eyes flicking up from the menu to gauge me for lies.

“No Kankri,” I answer, raking hair off my forehead. “I pass out in cars and public bathrooms and clubs, like the cool people do.”

“Don’t kid yourself, Aquarius,” says The Huss, tossing his menu into the centre of the table. “You’ll never be cool.” I try to yawn and retort at the same time, and right then the server shows up. Her eyes flit from me to Kankri to The Huss then back to me, pinballing around the table. Basic training did not prepare her for this, I see. I take measures into my own hands.

“My dearest darling angel,” I purr, settling one fist beneath my chin. “What on Earth are you doing in a place like this?”

“She’s working, Cronus,” says Kankri acidly, leaning across the table to swat me in the face with a menu like a savage. “Now,” says Kankri, dropping back into his chair. “I apologize on behalf of my…” he huffs. Maybe a touch dramatically. “Best friend. But he was not raised properly or with any manners whatsoever.” The server looks like she would love nothing more than to run back to the kitchen. She’s got nice legs, I bet she runs a lot. “Can I get you guys anything?” she says hesitantly, tapping a ballpoint pen against the yellow paper of her order thing. I should totally ask if she’s on the menu. That’s smooth. I open my mouth to respond when The Huss cuts me off.

“I will have the Ham-slinging Rasher and Slasher plate, while Pasty will have the strawberry pancakes and glass of orange juice. Skeevy on your right will have the banana pancakes and an apple juice. Tell the cooks to spit in his.” The Huss raps it all up with a cherubic smile.

“What did you call me?” I ask, setting one elbow on the table.

“Pasty?!” snaps Kankri, setting up for a tirade.

“I’ll be right back!” promises our server, and scuttles away.

By the time the food comes back around, Kankri’s blown his rage out at The Huss, who took it pretty stoically, and I’ve hunkered down on my side of the table. The food does not stand a chance. I’ve seen less gory scenes in horror movies, and those goddamn banana pancakes didn’t have a prayer. Kankri tries to politely suck strawberry jam off the side of his hand, and I watch him with a wide smile and wide eyes until he shamefully uses a napkin. The Huss stabs a table knife into a greasy strip of bacon and starts chewing on it like a viking.

“Dude,” I tell him, fluttering my fingers at him to catch his attention. “Smaller bites, you carnivore.”

“What? It’s not like I’ll choke,” says The Huss through a mouthful of gristle. “Famous last words from many a beauty, and yet, tragedy,” I answer, using my own terrible table manners to swipe icing sugar off the side of my plate.

“Choking hazards only exist on small objects because they have a tendencies to be lodged in windpipes,” murmurs Kankri, wiping his fingers clean on a wad of paper napkins. The Huss breaks into incredulous chortling, reaching a tiny palm up to give Kankri what’s an entirely lacklustre high five. It is. I would know. He’s my sidekick, I know what a good high five looks like. I signal back to the waitress to bring the bill back around.

Bracing my elbows on the table, I reach down to start tugging on the lanyard of my E-Ticket, feeling the plasticky outside cut into either side of my hand. The front door of the restaurant opens, and everything stops. And I mean everything. Screaming kids, pissed-off parents, carafes of coffee all freeze in time and space. My breath bleaches out of my lungs. In the doorway, the Lord of Time cocks his head to the side, the dead-empty eye sockets of his helmet digging into my soul.

“Down! Down!” snaps The Huss, jumping over the table to grab onto the lapel of my jacket. “What’s happening? Seizure?” asks Kankri, falling next to me to on the floor like we’re all trying to covertly smoke under the table. The Huss is a lot heavier than I expect, and I topple to the floor, Kankri crouching to one side and The Huss on the other. The diner erupts into screams as well as just erupts—a bolt of scorching blue light sears the plastic of the table, fires beginning to kick up in booths, on the fake plastic plants, everywhere as people run for the exit. Kankri’s arm goes over my back and the three of us press into the sticky floor. I can see the Lord of Time’s boots as they carefully, carefully step through the restaurant towards where I am. He seems to have ceased firing for now, so The Huss pops up and clambers onto a chair.

“Take a hike!” he shouts, taking a step further onto the table. “You washup! You narrative hack! I never should have put you to paper!”

Kankri grabs onto my arm, stumble-running and trying to stay low. “Cronus, c’mon, the kitchen, through the kitchen!” he pants, shouldering chairs out of the way as we head into the grease trap of the back kitchens. “But The Huss!” I protest, glancing back to the table. I can hear faintly, even through the double doors, a growl emanating from the green helmet, but it sounds more like the rumble of a radiator than like human speech. “Forget The Huss, he can handle it, he’s a demigod! Man!” snaps Kankri, sliding his hand down to link through my fingers while his eyes dart back and forth for an emergency exit.“That guy just does not let up!”

The growling from the dining area cuts out suddenly. There’s no backbite from The Huss either. Kankri tries taking a step away and I tighten my grip.

“Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t move.”

A crunching, sound comes from above the roof, like the chewing of an enormous caterpillar.

“Do you hear that?” Kankri asks.

Suddenly, the ceiling above us bursts and peels with heat, styrofoam-like ceiling tiles blackening and splitting under what looks like bright red light. “Not the kitchen! Go back, go back!” I shout, pulling Kankri’s weight back into my chest as I stagger back. Another strike of what feels like miles and miles of red and fire and panic rocket into the kitchen a second time. The metal counters shriek and buckle with force, collapsing into a metal pile, grills and industrial toaster-ovens collapsing into a smelt. I feel like my eyes are going to have afterimages for the rest of my life, which is going to be a lot shorter if we don’t get out of Hell’s Kitchen and Grease Den. I throw my shoulder into the door behind us, only managing to bump it open slightly. Kankri’s feet scrabble backwards too, trying to push us back and away, but my legs stop working, pain ratcheting from the outside of my legs into my hips. It’s no use. Kankri can’t hold my weight and get the door open.

“Kankri,” I mutter, feeling him stagger as he tries to support me. “Kankri, my legs. I’m sorry.”

Kankri doesn’t answer, but does the smart thing. Flames lick closer to the two of us, bright red sparks settling and burning into my pants as Kankri sets both feet steadily on the floor. “I’m sorry too!” he grunts. When he bends his knees, I fall forward, just slightly, and Kankri uses that opportunity to shift his grip and push with his feet. That little bit of leverage works wonders, and I am suddenly a sixteen year old battering ram. He rushes me into the double doors, smacking us through into the dining area, where we both trip on overturned chairs.

“Huurrggh!” I wheeze, taking the landing to the sticky floor with no amount of grace, and also taking Kankri’s weight. He tries to get up, and somehow, somehow, even after clearly saving our ass from Death Kitchen, accidentally drives a knee into my balls.

“Oops,” he says, instead of an apology.

“Thanks, Kankri,” I grit out, shoving him back with one hand and trying not to wince. “You goddamn oaf.”

“You know what? You’re welcome. You are welcome,” spits Kankri, and he looks like he’d like to keep tearing me a new one until he glances up and seems to lose steam. “Oh my God,” he mutters, pulling at my shoulder. “Time to go, time to go, time to go!” Kankri manages to help roll me to my side when I hear a low-powered hum coming from behind me.

The Lord of Time clicks his heels together twice jovially. How in the Hell he managed to sneak up on us in such bad green-glowing armour only to clomp his boots at us is beyond me. It’s smug, like he’s finally got us pinned, just to draw it out and make everything worse. Man, fuck this guy. Fuck this entire guy. Fuck this guy, this universe, the pain in my legs and my balls, this chump between me and freedom, I cannot care about this nonsense any more.

“Kankri,” I gesture, waving him over. “Kankri, c’mere, help me up.”

The Lord of Time watches us, bemused, as Kankri helps haul me to my feet, stabling me with a hand on my back and the other on my forearm. I do the only thing I can do. I outreach one hand, the space between me and the Lord of Time blackened by astral plane energy and burnt scrambled eggs, and slowly, slowly raise my middle finger.

“You got to be kidding me,” mutters Kankri disdainfully.

In the diner, surrounded by fire and scorch, me and my best friend have narrowly avoided one death only to find another one. We’re standing so close to one another that if The Lord of Time pulls the trigger, we’ll both be obliterated. The pain in my calves throb, settle, peter out and my knees have the feeling that they’ll be able to bend again. I could run. But Kankri’s not running. We’re young enough, but we’re tired. This is a lot to go through.

The Lord of Time raises his rifle, settling up steadily and taking his time, taking aim right at us. A gloved finger inches around the trigger, ready to give it a squeeze. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Kankri close his eyes. I keep mine wide open, staring deep into the empty sockets of the Lord of Time’s helmet, deep enough to see little sparks of far-off stars. Go on, punk, decommission me.

A thrown saucer frisbees into the body of the gun, and The Lord of Time’s shot goes over my shoulder, yet again, crackling purple energy eliminating the drywall. There’s still the smell of burning hair, and I think he might have singed the side of my neck. The Huss looks entirely too pleased with this, squaring up a second shot. He looks rough, bright red blood running from a spot hidden by his hair, but he’s got his square little teeth bared in a smile.

“I’m one for one,” says The Huss. “What’chu at, zero for eight?”

“If he looks away,” whispers Kankri, giving me a little dig with his nails so I pay attention. “We run.”

The Lord of Time relaxes his posture momentarily, but then raises his gun again. The Huss lets his second shot fly, whipping a hard overhand into the side of the Lord of Time’s head, momentarily snapping the Lord of Time's head to the side.

“Ha! Still got it!” crows The Huss. “Bangarang, man, come on, you gonna hit me?”

The Lord of Time wheels on a heel to take aim, and Kankri lets go of me long enough to run. I can hear the clambering of The Huss as he takes off across the tables, and my legs work well enough to carry me further than the rest. I keep expecting the shot to burst through and obliterate my body in blue fiery light but the shot doesn't come. I burst out of the sooty front doors of the restaurant, bell jangling wildly. The sky above us isn’t blue anymore, but instead is the gritty swirling grey of dishwater. Concave clouds push and rumble, and everything around the diner has turned to slush with the sudden heat.

“Cronus!” Kankri shouts from behind me, tossing me the keys. The Roadrunner’s the only thing left in the parking lot, and I slide through the unlocked door into the driver’s seat to gun the engine. Kankri and The Huss settle into the backseat, hunkering down as far as they can. Kankri kicks out one foot to tap down the lock with one toe, pushing The Huss down into the space between the seats on the floor. There's a flash of green and I know, somehow, that the second shot I was expecting is on the way in. I throw the car into reverse, swinging the hood out in a wide arc. The tires burn rubber, I keep low, and the shot skids over the hood of the car instead of going what might have been straight through. The bad paint job blisters with a streak of black. I could easily, so easily throw the car back into drive, just run this fucker over and end this once and for good, but I don't. 

As I peel out of the parking lot, I catch a sign, a big billboard that I wasn't sure was there before, wreathed in the smoke and flame of the dying diner, a pirate ship cresting through the red miles. The tires keep smouldering even as I drive away, and nobody says anything for a really long time. 

"What a bastard," the Huss says at last. "Now what?" 

"I think," I answer, adjusting my rearview so I can't see the police lights head to the scene or the column of smoke rising. "We are going to go boating."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lord of Time, a summary: I fired, and I missed. I took another shot, and I missed. I missed both times. And then I fired again, and then I missed again, and then I fired, and then I missed. This went on for several tries. And then I fired, and then I missed, so, long story short, missed. 
> 
> Once again, thank you so much for reading all of this and putting up with absolutely everything thus far! Feel free to check out any of my other stories, leave reviews, kudos, comments, whatever, all are appreciated. Thank you!


	40. Cronus Ampora Phones It In

We don’t get very far, like maybe half an hour of driving before we have to pull over because I am seriously too freaked to keep driving. Police cars whip in the opposite direction, heading back to the flaming Hell pit that we turned the diner into. Also, if we were only minor terrorists before, we sure as shit are in the major leagues now. I relax one hand enough to loosen grip on the steering wheel to reach the button on the dash that puts the emergency lights on. Kankri unbuckles his seatbelt, slinking down low into the passenger seat, throwing a wary red-eyed gaze over the backseat and beyond that. Neither of us say anything. No quippy one-liners from your main protagonists, no sir, until The Huss opens his yam face and fills the silence for us.

“You two boys really are trouble magnets, huh?” he says, eyes shifting slightly between the two of us. “You’re welcome for me saving your ass, by the way.”

“Thanks,” says Kankri numbly, his lips not moving much, his stare not wavering from the back window. “I keep expecting them to pull up on us any second.”

“Well in that case,” I say, trying to swallow my own freaked-out near death anxiety and knock the hazard button one more time, pulling back off the shoulder and continuing on our drive, but at a reasonable pace. Couple kids on a road trip. Cops look for speeders, they won’t look for two kids on a spring break road trip. When I glance back over, Kankri’s hauled his feet off the floor and has wrapped his arms around his knees, seemingly wrapped up in taking big methodical breaths.

“We’re heading to a doomsday bunker,” I say, filling the stifling silence. “I saw an ad for it on a billboard before we left the parking lot.”

“There was an ad for a doomsday bunker?” asks The Huss scathingly, pale eyes narrowing with disbelief.

I nod. “Telling us to visit before the End Was Nigh,” I answer, drumming one of my thumbs on the wheel. I look back into the review, and the road behind us is clear. The end feels pretty nigh already. Maybe everyone else feels it just as much as I do, but nobody wants to talk about it. The Huss blows out a disbelieving breath. “Before the End is Nigh,” he says, shaking his head. “Weird and harsh times, let me tell you.”

I glance over at Kankri, who’s rested his chin on the top of his knees, staring out at the road. “Kankri,” I say, knocking him on the shoulder with the back of my hand. “I need you to navigate.”

That seems to snap him out of it momentarily, and he opens the glove compartment to pull out a map that’s been folded and re-folded so many times that the corners have worn to white where they’re not worn to holes. “What was the name of it?” Kankri asks, spreading the map out on the dash and tracing down a path down the highway. “Shouldn’t it be obvious?” I ask. My foot twitches on the accelerator. Where’s the cruise control on this thing?

“There’s nothing but tourist traps,” answers Kankri, sliding the map up so it accordions against the windshield. Man, I get why my dad hated it when I tried to put my feet on the dash now when I was younger. Shit, my dad. Is he okay? Is he worried about me? How long have Kankri and me been missing anyway, it feels like forever but maybe it’s only been four or five days? Who knows anymore.

“Pick a random spot,” says The Huss. “Let the universe guide you.”

Kankri’s shoulders slump forward. “Oh man, listen whiny. It’s gotten you this far,” says The Huss, coming up to stand between the seats. “Trust the universe. Let it do whatever it does.” Kankri takes a deep breath and closes his eyes. “I want to go home,” he says, eyebrows pushing towards one another. “I want this to be over. This is a bad spring break. I want. To go. Home!”

“Just pick a spot, dude! God!” I shout back, smacking my hand down hard on the steering wheel and accidentally switching on the cruise control. The sound makes Kankri flinch, and for a moment I feel awful. But whether the finger of Vantas is guided by fortune or just by fear doesn’t seem to matter. Kankri ripped a new hole in the map when he clenched his hand, middle finger digging into our next location. The constellations have aligned as such: we are headed somewhere called Buckingham Wilds, East Coast USA, and we see where that goes from there. Could be scientists on the other side of the time-sealed vault, or it could be a bunch of hillbillies with shotguns who really want to claim our terrorist bounty fund. But then again, me and Kankri know without discussing it that it’s not like the cosmos blooms with options for us. Whatever happens, happens.

“Bet it’s another cult,” says Kankri morosely.

“What, with our track record? Nooo,” I answer. “I bet it’s full of virgins who think it’s post-fallout and need some new men.”

Kankri shoots me a look of unfiltered disgust. The Huss kicks the back of my seat. I shrug. It could happen. Weirder shit already has.

Kankri tries driving for a while, but he’s not as good as I am. He doesn’t like doing the long stretches behind the Roadrunner’s wheel and he gets antsy. So the way that things work out between us is that I get to drive and watch the sun set, watch it split into arterial reds and purples and then into the navy blue of early evening when I roll into a side-of-the-road gas station to fill up. The Huss leans against the rear window, watching fireworks going off in the distance.

“You think that means anything?” I ask him. The Huss makes a noncommittal noise. “It doesn’t have to,” he says, sounding vaguely honest. “It can just be nice, for once.”

We leave the fireworks far behind us by the next gas stop. The first stars start to wink into view when the Roadrunner pulls under the flickering neon lights of a gas station. I turn around to look in the backseat at Kankri and The Huss, who have crashed into sleep. Kankri bubbles out a small snore. I switch off the car as quietly as I can, and fill up with the grace and silence of a cathedral’s worth of ninjas. I head inside to pay with raw money from the jar, and I notice a reward poster for Kankri and me, way out in the sticks. Jeez.

“Anything else for you today?” asks the heavy-lidded girl behind the register. She’s kind of cute, if I was into the thick-waisted blonde hair and snub nose look. Psych, I am totally into that. Everyone’s beautiful and I suffer. If I wasn’t totally gross from travel I bet I could make her swoon. Man of the wasteland. Like Clint Eastwood mixed with Mad Max. We can re-build the Byronic man, make him better, we have the technology! I’m about to let her know how good I am, when I notice a pay phone in the back of the station.

“Actually,” I answer honestly. “Can I use the phone?”

I heard once that when you phone long-distance the phone call bounces all over the world before it bounces home. I collect-call my own house. Maybe I’ll get Eridan, or better yet I can leave a message. God, it’ll be awesome and totally tragic. Instead the phone gets snapped up in the middle of the third ring, which totally throws me.

“Cronus?” asks my dad, his voice rough with sleep. “Cronus, is that you?”

My silence is mostly because I’m caught off-balance. Oh shit, suddenly it’s my dad. He doesn’t know it’s me. And normally the house phone is in the living room, which means my dad’s either camped out on the couch waiting for me or he’s moved the phone to his own room.

“Cronus, please,” says my dad, Thales Ampora. “Are you okay? Are you hurt? The news, Cronus.”

My breath catches in my throat. Dad. Hi disappointment, I’m Dad. Suddenly my vocal cords feel like they’ve been scrubbed raw, and I can’t answer if I wanted to. I can hear Eridan’s voice in the background, asking dad who’s on the phone this early.

“Cronus, if you can hear me,” says my dad, who I’m scared of, who pushed me under heavy expectations, “Please come back. I’m sorry. I’ll fix it, just come home.”

I can’t take it. I shrug the payphone off my shoulder and hang up, regret rising in me like water. I couldn’t say anything. When I get back from this quest, I’m gonna talk to my dad. For real, father to son talk. I’ll be a better brother to Eridan. I rub at my eyes, and I shoot what even to me feels like a watery smile to the girl behind the counter.

“Sorry,” I say. “But there was nobody home.”

I slide back into the Roadrunner, tip my head against the driver’s seat, and sit in silence for a little bit. I’m fine, I’m cool. I got daddy issues. I slide the key into the Roadrunner’s ignition, and turn it. Absolutely nothing happens. I try again, and the Roadrunner repeats herself.

“Come the fuck on,” I mutter, and try a third time. Zilch. It’s enough to make me sit there in mute, enraged silence for a little while. I have to face my father blubbering long-distance, and I’m stuck in the middle of nowhere, still, and now my car won’t start. I feel like serial murderers are going to come dancing out of the woodwork at any moment, snapping rhythmically and sharpening their tools. I turn around to look in the backseat at Kankri and The Huss, who are still fast asleep. I’m not getting any help from them.

“Shit,” I whisper, the profanity lost to nestle in the shag of the Roadrunner’s interior. I scrub my hands into my hair, tugging at it momentarily before I let myself out of the car to try to pop the hood open. The girl inside leans with both elbows on the counter, watching me inevitably make a fool of myself. She gives me a tentative thumbs-up, then waggles it back and forth after a brief pause. I make no response to that verbally, but my hangdog hard-day-suicide look communicates to her. She doesn’t even roll her eyes when she pushes off from the counter to head outside.

“Hey, uh,” she says, opening the front door enough to pop it on an overall-clad hip. The bell over the door jangles wildly. “Rough night?”

I stare down into the engine of my car, as if I can divine some answer from the middle of it all. I don’t want to start crying, but it would be easy. I need a good rest. I miss the slothful days of healthy living, when I went to bed early because I didn’t have any friends to break curfew with.

“I don’t know,” I answer, trying to not sound pathetically sad. “I guess so.”

“You’re not from around here,” she says, the words slow like the needs to taste them before she uses them. Testing for a wrong tone anywhere. “You need help with the car? It’s pretty slow, I could help you out.”

There's a very brief moment of silence, and then I nod, letting my hands slide from the popped hood. Gas Station Girl sucks on her teeth, lips pursing to the side as her eyes flicker over the mess inside. It’s so quiet, that I inadvertently murmur, "I'm in trouble.”

“Yeah?” she says, reaching in with one hand to tug at something. Her expression sours, and her other hand follows the first one, into the open split-gut of the engine.

“Yeah,” I answer, folding my elbows into the palms of my hands. There’s more to the pokey part of I’m-in-trouble; Everyone else is in trouble because of me. Kankri would have had his spot looked at, and been diagnosed and gone home, I wouldn’t have destroyed an entire town, or killed a punk-god. My throat threatens to choke. It would have been better if I had died. Immediately after I think the thought, something else inside me rallies. No! Never! My self-disgust shifts in stance. Maybe it would be better if I was dead, but fuck you, here I am instead. Deal with it. The push inside me festers and seethes, and I look over the shoulder of gas-station girl into the heart of the car.

“Can you move?” she asks. “You’re in the light.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

“Still in the light.”

“Gotcha,” I answer, hunkering down so I’m nearly low enough to put my head on her shoulder. Gas station girl stops working and stares up at the hood, lips pressing into a thin line.

“I just want to help,” I say. Fine, it’s closer to a peep. Gas-station girl rolls her shoulders as if she’s trying to brush me off.

“Take a walk then, man,” she says. It’s not without sympathy. “Clear up whatever’s wrong and then come back, okay?”

I nod quickly, move back quicker. “Long week,” I croak, then clear my throat. So much for man of the wasteland. How did I blow that so hard and so fast? It’s embarrassing. I gesture towards Kankri and The Huss, snoozing in the backseat. “Mind keeping an eye on my tiny tenacious friends?” I ask. Gas-station girl sounds like she’s hitting the end of her patience. “Yup. They’ll be fine. Go walk. Take a hike. Shoo.”

Swallowing hard, I look around to anywhere I can go. Nowhere else but the thin line of trees. Well, if the lurking wildmen won't come for me, look out wildmen. I wrap my arms tight around my torso and stride forwards, because if I can make it this far I'm pretty sure I'm immortal. 


End file.
